The pretender

Harkin (Tell Me an Ending, 2022), fictionalizes the true story of Lambert Simnel, a 10-year-old peasant boy believed to be the nephew of Kings Edward IV and Richard III. He's been hidden away in an obscure village for his safety, but now the Yorkists are plotting to overthrow Henry Tudor and crown Lambert. This Rabelaisian tale pokes fun at how he and his handlers bide their time on their way to install him at court. He is taught etiquette, concealed in various homes, and introduced to important people, one of whom is the daughter of an Irish earl, Joan, who has a sociopathic nature (and was, according to Harkin, her favorite character to write). Joan becomes Lambert's love interest and teaches him dastardly ways to survive at court. Peppered with bon mots, delicious sarcasm, and irreverent banter, this literary historical novel is a lively history lesson with a comical view of life during the late Middle Ages. Lambert is a likable and earnest protagonist who offers droll insights as he naively goes along with the political machinations of the shrewd adults surrounding him. Harkin's imaginative take on a calculated hoax in English history and portrait of a curious young personage is a wildly entertaining and satirical comedy full of interesting characters.

The mesmerizing sophomore novel from Harkin (Tell Me an Ending) takes its inspiration from the true story of one of the pretenders to the throne of England. In 1493, John Collan, a 10-year-old living with his widowed father on a farm in the English countryside, is visited by two men who claim he's actually Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick and nephew of King Richard III. According to the men, John has been hidden away because of the king's penchant for doing away with his presumptive heirs. As Edward, he becomes the figurehead of the Yorkist revolt against Richard's successor, the Lancastrian usurper, Henry VII. When the revolt fails, Edward's life is spared and he's given a job in the king's kitchen, where he becomes involved in numerous court intrigues and trysts, even as the real Earl of Warwick is imprisoned in the Tower of London. Living by his wits, Edward bides his time and plots to get even with those who betrayed him. Not much is known about the real-life pretender, but that doesn't prevent Harkin from fully imagining his life, and the rowdy world in which he lived, via the novel's intriguing plot and exquisitely profane language. This razor-sharp historical is on par with Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. Agent: Christy Fletcher, UTA. (Apr.)

A lumbering yarn of a once-and-future British king, save that the future never quite materializes. How you gonna keep him down on the farm after he's seen Dijon? John Collan, 10 years old when we meet him, is obsessed with ridding his farm hamlet of a devil goat that, he writes, "knocked me in the mud again today & has TRODDEN churlishly over my back." John also keeps himself busy absorbing the folk wisdom of the simple Saxons among whom he lives, including a cheesemaker with a salty tongue: "A fucking nuisance, she was," she says of Joan of Arc. "I like to think Banbury cheese had a hand in her downfall." Well, along comes a mysterious stranger who reveals that John is not who he thinks he is, but instead the tucked-away descendant of a murdered nobleman and, to boot, a claimant to the throne. Trouble is, the other claimants, among them the last of the Plantagenets and the first of the Tudors, have other ideas. John is hauled off to Oxford to learn his Latin and courtly manners and such. There, his kindly patron tells him, "Your real name is Edward, but we can't use that yet. In letters we've coded you Lambert, so we may as well stick at that. You are Lambert Simons." His education is polished in Burgundy and Ireland, where he finds love and intrigue, per historical fiction formula. Harkin's tale is slow-moving, with often labored writing that makes for labored reading, and with a kind of half-commitment to using period language: "Sir James Butler has a maugre against the York kings. He picked the Lancastrian side in the great wars, the doddard." Suffice it to say that at tale's end, we're glad to see John/Lambert/Edward sail off for Spain. A middling entry in the library of medieval English historical fiction. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.