Breakaway Books

Authored by Jo Harkin; Published April 2025; Historical Fiction

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️

I was not optimistic about The Pretender when I first started it, especially considering my lack of knowledge of early English history. But it turns out humans are humans in every era, and this coming of age story is humorous and heart rending in turns. 

The Pretender follows a young boy in the 1400s, raised on a country farm in England, who becomes the center of a very brief rebellion. John Collan, as he is known at first, is whisked away from the farm, the only home he has ever known, as a young teen and begins his education as a king-in-waiting, a successor hidden from the throne in the hopes that he would one day inherit it. Politics swirl around John wildly as he is covertly passed from co-conspirator to co-conspirator, even as he tries to understand what it means to be a king and a nobleman. When the brief attempt to install him on the throne fails, the boy is forced into service for the current king, a plant to weed out other insurrectionists. All he longs for, in the end, is the ability to live a life truly his own.

Truly, I couldn’t imagine that I would find anything to connect with in this novel set several centuries ago and narrated by a young boy. While it did take a few chapters for me to feel immersed, in the end, I was engrossed in the evolution of this boy from innocent peasant to scheming, jaded nobleman. One would think from such a description that the story would feel bleak, featuring a pessimistic view of humanity, but somehow humor and goodness still manage to shine through. The part of the novel that really drew me in is the depiction of John’s time in Ireland, when he lives with a big noble family that includes five girls who act like his sisters. Yes, he falls in love, certainly a key step in his maturity, but during this time, he grows in political savvy as well, and it is the first time in years that it feels like he has a family. It is a turning point, both for him and for the reader (or at least this reader). The people he meet in Ireland stay with him, in spirit, and guide his actions for the rest of the novel.

It’s impossible, at the end of this novel, not to feel like all the back and forth about who is truly entitled by blood to the throne is trivial, even pointless. To me, it all seemed like man after man grasping for power by whatever means they find available to them—a universal, timeless phenomenon. But on the individual level, it tortures John not to know: Is he truly supposed to be in line for the throne? Or is he merely a peasant who has an appearance conveniently close enough to another successor and thus merits being used as a chess piece? He, too, finally also settles it as a trivial question, deciding that all he can do is attempt to grasp his own freedom and live the way that he desires. 

Don’t disregard The Pretender just because you’re not an English history buff. It might surprise you!