Reviews for Virgin Earth

The average rating for Virgin Earth based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-04-09 00:00:00 Tod Emery Virgin Earth is the second installment in Gregorys Tradescant duology, written about the somewhat elusive Tradescant gardeners to the royals. The Tradescants, being that of John and John Junior Tradescant, who have a lot to be accountable for, in today's plants and trees in the Uk. Let me start by saying that this very novel is one of the greatest reasons I love Historical Fiction as a genre. Gregory is remarkable at writing about history, and the reason why I love it so, is that at the end of every book of hers, you are much more knowledgeable before you started reading it. I come away from these books retaining so many historical facts. As much as I would love to take her books as gospel obviously there is much fiction entwined into these novels to make them more enjoyable and entertaining, however I spend majority of my time back and forth from Wikipedia to see if ' did that really happen?', most of the time it did. However, as hard as it is sometimes is I have to refrain from Google so as not to ruin the characters story. I found this book remarkably relevant to this moment in time, as this book focuses on the time period of the Civil War, documenting the demise of Charles 1 through his gardeners eyes. I am not so familiar with this part of history, however with the current state of affairs in Britain right now,( I dare not say the dreaded B word), I did find it all most relevant. Are we not a country divided? Gregorys writing as always is an absolute pleasure to read. I am a true fan of hers and will continue to preorder and impatiently await her new novels, I just find that she transports you to a time long ago and brings to life these fantastic historical characters. The way she weaves a story around them in utterly astounding and sometimes you have to remind yourself that majority is fiction. I would highly recommend this book, the characters seem true and relate-able, if your fascinated with battles and monarchy this will entertain you. This novel is also based around the beginnings of Virginia and a large chunk focuses on the Native American tribes and how they lived. It really is an enjoyable history lesson. If you love history like me then you will simply adore Philippa Gregory like many of her adoring fans, myself included.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-03-24 00:00:00 Sven H�bner I liked The Other Boleyn girl, so I thought this would be a good, fast read. The first 1/3rd was mildly interesting. I was hoping the character development would continue, but it abruptly stopped when she started focusing several chapters on the Royalists vs. Parliamentarians. It didn't really seem pertinent to the main story...if there was a main story. Gregory could have removed the entire middle of the book and saved readers from a 650+ page book that ended up being a waste of time (in my opinion). It was really challenging to read this novel because I was waiting for it to pick up again. It never really did. Characters that seemed like they would get an interesting treatment were put aside. Even John Tradescant was underdeveloped, in my opinion. There was a frustrating unbelievable lack of response or emotion from some characters and annoying, drawn-out, ok-we-get-it overdramatic responses from others. One of my least favorite novels, ever.