I've read several of Philippa Gregory's books about the Tudors. I saw this one at the library and thought I'd give this one a try. 
 The book is about Elizabeth Woodville, who married Edward IV, and is the mother of the Princes in the Tower. I liked the idea of the book a lot better than the actual book. 
 I didn't like the parts about Melusina at all. It was mentioned a lot, and I got really tired of all the references to the water and witchcraft. It was interesting the first couple times, but after that, I wish she had been more subtle- or even left it out completely, because it didn't really add anything to the plot, or helped move it along in any way. It didn't bother me, and I would have enjoyed it if it weren't so darned repetitive. 
 It started off interesting, but then went downhill from there. I was bored reading it, and had to force myself to finish it, which is really rare for me. Part of it was the writing, which was worse than the writing in her Tudor series. At times, I couldn't believe that it was the same author who wrote The Other Boleyn Girl. 
 The story didn't seem coherent, the 1st person narrative didn't work for the story very well, and the characters weren't likeable. If it weren't for the fact that it's a library book, I would have thrown it at a wall or something. And it wasn't just the Melusina bit that was repetitive. Overall, several things were mentioned so many times that it was like she used the same few pages and wrote it in as many different ways as humanly possible. One other example would be Elizabeth's need for vengeance. I get that there were several people she didn't like, but her constant need for vengeance and revenge made her seem like she didn't care about anything else. And when you add that to the fact that she constantly tried to further her family above everyone else made her seem selfish and greedy. I get it to a certain extent, because it seems like that's what people did back then, but Gregory took it to a completely different level. 
 The author's note at the end is a completely different story. Since I'm so annoyed with it, it'll probably end up as a blog post, because I have quite a few criticisms of it. 
 Rating: 2 out of 5 because I liked the plot and thought it could have been better with a little more editing.