The Outrageous Oriel

Family tree series #8

by Sally Watson

The year is 1641, and England lurches toward civil war. King Charles I claims Divine Right to rule autocratically, so Parliament vengefully arrests his friend Lord Strafford. While the trial goes on, while Queen Henrietta plots with the court poets to seize the Tower of London, while Princess Mary rebels against wedding the Prince of Orange, while London riots, Lord Heath brings his daughter Oriel to court and directs her to make the Princess amenable to the marriage.Oriel, elfin, judgmental, willful and offensively candid (as her friend and neighbor Evan tells her) declines to obey. ("I don't know if she'll be happy!") She finds Court offensive-as they find her. Having alienated the queen and poets by pointing out that their plots are foolish, and the courtiers (including her promised husband) by scorning their hypocrisy, she makes friends with the commoners in the courtyard servants, thieves, artisans and whores, who call themselves Yardbirds.The crises of Strafford's conviction and the royal wedding coincide with the kidnapping of Oriel for reasons of combined politics and vengeance. King, queen and courtiers the outrageous Oriel is no loss. It's the Yardbirds and Evan who unite to find and rescue her.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Fiction

166 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Watson is a YA historical fiction writer, mostly about the British royals. She moved to England in 1964 and lived there for 24 years. Her most well-known works are parts of her English Family Tree series. Most of her books went out of print in the 1970s, many eventually reprinted by Image Cascade. She has also written YA novels set in ancient Egypt.

Her most recent book is The Angry Earth, an adult story of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this with my daughter, as we have been reading as many of Sally Watson's books as we can. Most of her books were written in the late 60s but this one was written in 2006. Very interesting to compare this to her earlier work! I love this author and really liked this book- different and I venture to say better.

[christine ✩ · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is a lot more Linnet than it is Lark even though Oriel is, after all, Lark's sister (!). Thus the mysterious older sister living in the Scottish highlands!!? unless that's Cecily but I'm not sure why SHE would be out there. (Linnet proved Watson could write one of these without romance, and Oriel continues that. Highland Rebel doesn't count it's far more juvenile)
Oriel is Something Else(tm), always with Watson's charm and wit, but she's genuinely BONKERS and so is the plot at large though I've easily come to expect that from Watson (and I'd be lying if I said I was fully following it I Was Not). Big fan of the Yardbirds. Lowkey did not expect that from Evan but like go off king I guess. Fun thumbs up though I would 100% say this is YA rather than MG due to threatened rape. I need to go look at the family tree again