Product Description

The story begins in 1450, when civil unrest sweeps England and the struggle for the crown is at its peak. Deep in a western forest, a baby is born. Powerful forces plot to kill both mother and child, but somehow the newborn girl survives. Her name is Anne.

Fifteen years later, England has a charismatic young king, Edward IV, and the country has begun to wake from the nightmare of the War of the Roses. When Anne is brought to London to be a servant in the household of a wealthy merchant, her unusual beauty soon provokes jealousy, lust and intrigue. But Anne has one special quality that saves her: her knowledge of herbs and healing. News of her remarkable gift spreads and she is brought to save the life of Edward’s ailing queen.

And so Anne comes to live in the royal palace, and it is here she finds her destiny: to be loved by the king himself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #181891 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Review
‘Historical fiction gallops to new heights in this debut tale of intrigue, lust and betrayal.’ (Woman’s Own on THE INNOCENT )

‘The reader is taken on a galloping ride through the Middle Ages and the shaky reign of Edward IV, the love of Anne’s life. There’s lust, conspiracy and impressive historical detail to set the scene.’ (Daily Telegraph, Sydney on THE INNOCENT )

‘Court intrigue, forbidden love, bags of incident and a glorious package, the first in a trilogy. Obvious comparisons are made to Philippa Gregory but it is younger and a great deal sexier. I loved it.’ (The Bookseller on THE INNOCENT )

‘This racy tale comes alive with its colourful and often sumptuous descriptions and intriguing plot . . . I can’t wait for the next one.’ (Australian Women’s Weekly on THE INNOCENT )

About the Author
Posie Graeme-Evans was born in England but travelled all over the world with her parents, a novelist and an Australian spitfire fighter pilot. Posie has worked in the Australian film and television industry for the last 25 years as an editor, director and producer on hundreds of prime time television programmes including the number one drama series McLeod'sDaughters and the worldwide pre-school phenomenon Hi-5. Posie has two daughters, both named Emma, and a son Julian. She is currently the Director of Drama for the Nine Network, and lives in Sydney with her husband and creative partner, Andrew Blaxland.

Customer Reviews

An enjoyable, light read
I really liked 'The Innocent'. It was a light read but enjoyable with just enough intrigue and romance to keep it moving and I wanted to keep turning pages to see what would happen next. I really liked Anne too, but at times I feel she was just a little bit too 'nice'. There's nothing wrong with being nice, but at times I wished she had a little bit more dimension to her.

Sometimes I felt that her beauty was overplayed though. Everyone she meets, and I mean EVERYONE, is struck dumb by her beauty and even if someone is in a foul murderous mood, one glance at Anne and they're turned into a blithering idiot who is willing to do her bidding no matter what. It's a bit overdone.

My only other complaint is that I feel the reveal of her parentage was a bit rushed and it just seemed a bit thin. There's no argument or questions or queries or doubt from anyone...it's quite a big deal when it comes, but the response is usually just "Oh really? OK then." Given the circumstances I'd have liked a little more effort rather than blind acceptance.

I'd recommend the book though, especially if you like a good costume drama, it's easy to get into and as long as you're not put off by quite rough sex scenes, it's a good book.

I'm looking forward to the second and third books.

could have been so much better
The potential was there for this to be a good book but the whole thing just didn't come together and the plot got more and more unbelievable. The author is a competant writer who had done her historical research but the characters were 2-dimensional, and Anne, the supposed heroine, had no presence at all. It probably also suffered from the inevitable comparison with both Philippa Gregory and Sharon Penman, the latter of whom 'did' the Edward IV story so much better in her 'The Sun in Slendour' (highly recommended). Ok, so Graeme-Evans was never going to involve herself in the complex political machinations following the war of the roses (and there's no reason why she should) but the plot developments just got laughable i.e. Edward goes from being a sexual predator to discovering Anne is the love of his life in about 2 minutes flat, and she goes from being a servant to being the illegitimate daughter of Henry VI and therefore his potential rival to the throne without a blink of the eye... yeah, right!
There were all kinds of plot strands that got started and then went nowhere i.e. Anne as healer-wise woman.
Altogether not a bad read, but not a satisfying one either but it'll pass a tube journey quite pleasantly.

What a load of............
I was hugely diappointed in this book. I had read all these xcellent reviews and was looking forward to a good historical romance and novel and I ended up feeling slightly cheated. The story of Anne who goes from a servant to a powerful woman during the reign of Edward IV is poor to say the least. The character development is non-existant; things happen all of the sudden with no lead up to developments at all. Suddenly everyone sees how beautiful Anne is, suddenly she is a confident grown woman, suddenly everyone believes her back story etc... etc... The action is also quite poor; nothing really happens until the last twenty pages of book and it is those which have earned the book the stars that I did give it. The last meeting between Anne and the king as well as the scene at the tournament is written very well and shows wonderful insight into human nature; if only the same had been true of the rest of the book. I rarely throw books away but this one is not taking up space on my bookshelf.