3/3.5 stars

At 17 years old, Alice Perrers became the mistress of King Edward III as his wife ailed with a debilitating illness. In The King's Concubine, Anne O'Brien brings to life the mystery of Alice and the real woman behind the rumours and the false accusations made against her.

I really enjoyed Anne O'Brien's way of bringing to life Alice - a woman I never knew about before. But she was someone who I immediately was intrigued by when I began to learn how she accumulated wealth and what a smart business woman she must have been. At a time when it was really hard/virtually impossible for a woman to own her own wealth, she basically became a property tycoon. And you have to respect that. It makes you think what she could have accomplished if she had been born in a different time as she obviously had a great mind, and a business savvy to boot.

This book would never be described as action packed, it's quite long and for people who might be new to historical fiction, it could be a little bit boring - especially as for the majority of Alice's time as Mistress, times were peaceful and when they weren't, she wasn't privy to much.

It's always interesting and infuriating to see how men vying for power will try and bring down a woman when she takes a step too far up the ladder of power herself, and this is exactly what happened to Alice. She also had a strong sense of pride in this book and this characterization of her which meant that often she said the wrong things and she would often let people think things about her rather than show any kind of weakness.

I also felt in this book the real absence of a group of female companions for Alice - she was an extremely lonely and solitary character and the only people who she seemed to truly be friends with were her lover, and her lover's wife. Even in her marriage, she seemed to keep him at arm's length.

I still enjoyed this book, and as always love to hear about a woman's place and time in history.