This reading group guide for The Kingmaker's Daughter includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Philippa Gregory. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.


Introduction

The Kingmaker’s Daughter is an adventurous and exciting novel that tells the story of the daughters of the ruthless Earl of Warwick. Anne, the Earl’s youngest daughter and the novel’s narrator, is a fanciful young girl at the start of the story—but by the end, she has grown into a woman who knows of both the pleasures of love and the deep, devastating pain of loss.

The destinies of Anne and her elder sister, Isabel, have been decided by their father, and they are used repeatedly as pawns in his plays for political power. But when he turns against Queen Elizabeth and King Edward IV, the same king he fought to put on the throne not so long ago, he is killed in battle, leaving Anne and Isabel to fend for themselves in the lives he has created for them. Their paths ultimately lead them to the court of Elizabeth and Edward, where it is never fully clear to them who is friend and who is foe. Anne and Isabel, both having married one of the King’s brothers, must fight to pro see more