This sequel to The Royal Game continues the story of the Paston family. The Pastons were an influential Norfolk family during the 15th century and left behind a collection of private correspondence, known as the Paston Letters, which are a valuable source of information on life in England at this time. In this novel and her previous one, Anne O’Brien brings the story of the Pastons to life, using their letters to provide the outline of the plot. You could read this book as a standalone if you wanted to, but I would recommend reading both in order if you can.

A Marriage of Fortune is again narrated by several of the Paston women. First there’s Margaret Mautby Paston, now a widow with seven children. Her eldest son, Sir John, is now head of the family following the death of his father, but Margaret still takes an active part in managing the household, arranging the marriages of her younger children and continuing the ongoing feud against the Duke of Norfolk over the ownership of Caister Castle. Margaret’s priority is seeing that the Pastons continue to rise through the ranks of society, so she is furious when her eldest daughter Margery announces that she is in love with the family bailiff, Richard Calle. She refuses to allow a marriage between the two, but is unprepared for the lengths to which Margery is prepared to go.

The relationship between Margaret and Margery is very sad to read about. Margery is another of our narrators, which means we get to know exactly how she feels about her mother’s refusal to accept her love for Richard and the family estrangement that occurs as a result. Margaret believes that a daughter’s first duty should be to her parents and that Margery has no right to consider her own happiness, but there’s always a sense that she might come to regret taking this stance and we are kept wondering whether mother and daughter will be reconciled in the end.

We also hear from Margaret’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth Paston Poynings, whose husband has been killed fighting on the Yorkist side at the Second Battle of St Alban’s, leaving her a widow with a young son. Like Margaret, Elizabeth has found herself facing a struggle to hold on to her late husband’s estates, which are being claimed by the powerful Percy family. A fourth narrator is Anne Haute, cousin of Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV’s queen. Anne is betrothed to Margaret’s son, Sir John Paston, but with the rapidly changing political situation in England – Edward IV on the throne one minute, Henry VI the next – it seems that Sir John is reluctant to either make the marriage official or release her from it. I had a lot of sympathy for poor Anne when she begins to discover that she’s wasted years of her life on a man who clearly doesn’t really love her.

I enjoyed A Marriage of Fortune; this is one of my favourite periods to read about, but I still haven’t read the original Paston Letters or Helen Castor’s non-fiction account of them, Blood and Roses, despite having had the latter on my TBR pile for several years now. This was maybe a good thing as far as this novel was concerned, as it meant that although I was familiar with the historical background – the kings and queens, the battles and rebellions – I didn’t know the personal stories of the individual Paston family members, so I never knew what was going to happen to them next. However, I do think this novel, like the first one, was slightly too long, with a lot of information packed into it. It may have been better to have focused on fewer characters; Elizabeth Poynings’ story, in particular, felt very separate from the others and could possibly have been left out.

I’m not sure whether there will be a third book on the Pastons or whether Anne O’Brien will be moving on to something else now. Either way, she always chooses interesting historical women to write about so I know it will be worth looking forward to.

Thanks to Orion for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

This is book 2/50 read for the 2023 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

With a title like The Royal Game, you might expect this novel to be about a king or a queen; in fact, it’s the story of the Pastons, who rose from humble origins to become members of the aristocracy and one of Norfolk’s most influential families during the 15th century. Their collection of personal letters, known as the Paston Letters, is the largest archive of private correspondence surviving from the period and tells us a lot about life in England at that time.

The Pastons’ story is retold by Anne O’Brien in fictional form, using the letters as a guide. She has chosen to focus on three characters in particular: Margaret Mautby Paston, wife of John Paston, who becomes head of the family after the death of his father; John’s sister Elizabeth (known as Eliza); and Anne Haute, a cousin of Edward IV’s queen, Elizabeth Woodville. There are chapters written from the perspectives of each of these women, mainly Margaret and Eliza at first, with Anne only introduced halfway through and becoming more prominent towards the end of the book.

During the period covered in the novel, the Wars of the Roses are playing out in the background as the House of Lancaster and the House of York fight for control of England’s throne. The Pastons are an ambitious family who see the changing political situation in terms of what it will mean for them and how they can turn things to their own advantage in order to increase their wealth and power. This means that much of the story is concerned with the gaining and losing of properties and land, disputes over wills and controversies surrounding inheritances. In particular, estates left to John Paston by his patron Sir John Fastolf (the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Falstaff), become the subject of a long legal battle.

I liked this book much more than Anne O’Brien’s previous one, The Queen’s Rival, partly because this one is written in a more straightforward format – although with the alternating narrators I mentioned above. I felt that the narrative voices of Margaret and Eliza were very similar and sometimes I had to remind myself which one I was reading about, but this was less of a problem as I got further into the book. Margaret is portrayed as a strong, intelligent and resourceful woman working alongside her husband to hold on to the family property, while Eliza is being badly treated by her mother and desperately hoping for marriage as a way of escape. Eventually, both women find themselves with the same focus in life: to protect their children’s titles and inheritances from jealous rivals who are trying to claim them for themselves. Our third narrator, Anne Haute, who is depicted as another young woman with ambition and hopes of an advantageous marriage, seems unconnected to the other two at first, but quickly becomes drawn into the Pastons’ world.

The Wars of the Roses is one of my favourite historical periods to read about and it made a nice change to move away from the usual novels set at the royal court or on the battlefields and see what was going on elsewhere in the country at that time. I enjoyed this book but it’s very long and detailed and I was surprised when I reached a cliffhanger ending and discovered that there’s going to be a sequel. I will look out for it, but while I wait maybe this would be a good time to read my copy of Blood & Roses, Helen Castor’s non-fiction book about the Paston family.

Thanks to HQ for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 47/50 read for the 2021 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.