Does anyone else like historical fiction? I am a total nerd for it. I have been listening & reading basically every book by both Alison Weir and Philippa Gregory, and... I have thoughts.

I really prefer Alison Weir's books to Philippa's. I have been reading The King's Curse (focuses on Margaret Pole's life) and to be honest it is one of the better pieces of her work that I have read. They always seem like such a slog to get through because she always writes her characters as such idiotic and insipid lunatics. Margaret is by far one of the more likable written main characters of hers that I have read. (Aside from Hannah Green in The Queen's Fool which I did adore.)

As I have been poking around looking at other opinions of her work - I have heard it said that she likes to consider herself a amateur historian and that many people think that she claims the events in her books actually happened, and by the broad strokes, they did. However, she does take a TON of license to move her plots along that deviate from the actual historical record. Which is fine in historical fiction as long as the books turn out good.

For example: in Alison Weir's book The Lady Elizabeth, Weir's story assumes the position that Elizabeth became pregnant due to her grooming and rape by Thomas Seymor; however, in the author's note Weir clearly states: "We don't know what actually happened, and one thing I get to ask as an author is: 'What if it did?' " which I appreciated as a end-note to the story. Phillipa does nothing of the sort in any of her books I have come across, which I find a bit... unsettling?

Then there is the way that she treats her female characters. In The Red Queen, Margaret Beaufort is a totally unlikable main character. (to be fair, she isn't my favorite Tudor person on a good day, but god damn lady.) and Elizabeth of York is little more than a young girl with a love of a dead man's dick for half of her novel. Henry VIII is always portrayed as at least somewhat sympathetically, and she turned Catharine of Aragon into a lying whipped puppy. Gregory has nothing but hatred and contempt for Anne Boleyn, which, fair - most people either love her or hate her. But Gregory's intense dislike for Elizabeth I is just... Gregory, girl, how did 'Liz hurt you?

I don't know. I'm just thinking through my fingers here. But has anyone else noticed this?