The Favoured Child by Philippa Gregory

I approached this book with a lot of trepidation after reading Wideacre, the first in the trilogy, and having a sense of what I was getting myself into. I was squicked out enough by parts of the first book that I probably wouldn't have continued with the trilogy if I hadn't already gone ahead and bought all three books together in a leap of faith. This is definitely a stronger book than Wideacre, and I'm glad I bit the bullet. The only thing that was a bit tiresome was how broadly bad villain is. If Richard had a mustache, he'd be twirling it through most of the story. He's completely obviously, gleefully evil, and Julia's reasonably bright, and why she doesn't see what's plainly in front of her face for most of the story is eye-rollingly absurd. The good guys are too good and the bad guys are too bad, but for some reason I enjoyed the hell out of it anyway.