Review of the White Queen BBC series

So after having watched the 10part series referred to as "The White Queen", I am now reading all the books I can about the different woman within the War of the Roses and have become fascinated by the woman involved. As we all know the series was based on a series of books by renowned historical author Phillipa Gregory, she has recently released a new book called "The White Princess" which is also part of the series and is about Elizabeth of York also known as the first Tudor Queen as she married Henry VII to try and bring the two houses of York and Lancaster together to end the War of the Roses, known back then as the Cousins War.

Having read all the other books in this series with avid attention, I pretty much consumed the contents of this book as soon as I could get my hands on it and am now desperately searching on amazon for other books about this fascinating little focused on member of the Tudor Dynasty.

The BBC series was very good however I believed it fell into the classic trap of focusing on the very simple route of detailing the many different battles of the War of the Roses, and missed out on many points that I felt were important, that made you really connect with the woman and characters so much in the books. But were forgotten or missed out in the TV series, which made me feel that other people watching the series who haven't read the books wouldn't understand and relate to the characters so much.
An example of this would be when in the book Elizabeth, the York Queen, met with Elizabeth Shore and in the book Elizabeth shows her anger about Edward having Elizabeth Shore as his mistress for a number of years by saying "He didn't love you" and she very sensibly and meekly replies"No, he never loved anyone like he loved you, There was never any doubt in my mind but there was one queen on the throne and the same queen in his heart. He made sure that I knew that. Everyone knew that. It was only ever you for him."
Elizabeth replies with "you were dear to him , I was jealous of you because I knew that you were very dear to him, He said you were his merriest Whore" This to me is a brilliant piece of writing and conveys so many emotions and really makes you feel for those to characters and how strong any woman would have to be to acknowledge that their husband betrayed them with many other woman and to never know if one of those woman may have captured his heart. I believe this is an important moment for the character's development, however was completely glossed over and forgotten about in the series.
Some of the woman were portrayed differently to how I viewed them in the books, which is always a problem when something you love is being turned into a film, or TV series and you worry that your characters will be ruined when they are portrayed by actors on screen.
Classic example would be Twilight, I personally enjoyed those books however I felt the actors who played the characters in the movies and the way in which the characters were portrayed was very different to my view of them in the books and how I imagined they would be. Therefore it is always a worry when a book you love is going to be adapted for the screen
However although some characters were not portrayed in the way I saw them when I read the books, Many characters were portrayed very well and the actors that were playing them were very suited to characters.
The only character who I felt I couldn't relate to was Anne Neville, for some reason I could not relate to her as she was portrayed on screen whereas in the book "The Kingmakers Daughter" which was from her perspective I really felt for her and definitely had sympathy with her and her predicaments.
If I were to view it as seperate completely from the books then  I would say it was good and had lots of drama and held my focus, but seeing as it had 4 very detailed books to work form it could have been much richer and more detailed. Compared to the previous BBC series The Tudors which was 5 series long and gave so much detail and information and drama, The White Queen would not come up as good, however I do not believe that this is a reflection on Phillipa Gregory's writing as having read most of her other books, I know her books are excellent.
Overall the series was definitly worth watching, but the books that the series was based on much much better, for anyone who found the tv series interesting, the books are a must read!!!
love laura :)