Great fictional Memoir
I've been gobbling up Jude Morgan's books since reading the stunning Passion: A Novel of the Romantic Poets. While this one doesn't quite live up to Passion, it was a very enjoyable read. It is the life story of James, Duke of Monmouth, bastard son of Charles II. When the queen fails to produce an heir, Charles retrieves his son, whose mother has been reduced to making a living as a whore, and gradually brings him into the realm of the court. As time goes by, intriguers at the court wrangle to get the king to name James as his heir, rather than the humorless, Catholic-leaning Duke of York, the king's younger brother. Morgan creates the world of the seventeenth-century court in realistic, carefully researched detail, and he creates a believable character in Monmouth--one that is worthy of empathy and, at times, contempt.
