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Unfortunately, this novel was not to my taste.
I knew before reading this novel that the narrative was from three different prospectives--Elizabeth Wydeville, Anthony Wydeville, and modern-day historian Una Proyr--and I was looking forward to reading it. I enjoy novels with a narrative structure that expertly manages to weave the past and the present.
In my opinion, this novel did not succeed in this. I found the modern-day narrative to be far too distant from that of Elizabeth and Anthony. I found the connections between the two to be far too loosely attached, and thus found myself hurrying through the modern narrative to return back to the words of Elizabeth.
Only towards the end of the novel, when Una Proyr actually began to visit the places of Elizabeth and Anthony's story, did I feel the story begin to take shape. And yet unfortunately, by that point, I felt that it was too late.

Probably one of the least exciting books I have ever read. The story line was just too flat for me. Giving two stars only because I have respect for the author, specially as a descendant of Charles Darwin. It just wasn’t to my taste and didn’t move fast enough for me.

This was a great disappointment after `The Mathematics of Love'. Of course, one of the drawbacks for me was that here in South Africa we know little or nothing about English history beyond what Shakespeare has told us.
Is slipping from a story in the past to one in the present going to be Emma Darwin's formula? Let's hope not - it worked well the first time, but in this case a soppy contemporary story with an inevitable ending jarred with the doings of royals of yesteryear.
Nevertheless, I'll read the next one, if only out of respect for her ancestor Charles.

A Secret Alchemy is narrated by two historical characters, Elizabeth Woodville and her brother Anthony, and by one fictitious one, Una Pryor, a historian who's returned to England from her home in Australia to sell her English property. During her stay in England, the recently widowed Una, who's working on a book about Anthony Woodville and his reading, visits the cousins with whom she was raised and encounters the man whom she loved as an adolescent.

Anthony's story begins with the last journey of his life: he is bound for Pontefract Castle, where he knows that the future Richard III has scheduled his execution. Elizabeth tells her story from the quiet confines of Bermondsey Abbey, to which she has retired from the court of Henry VII. Neither tells his or her life story from beginning to end; instead, they each focus on a few selected episodes, such as Elizabeth's courtship by Edward IV and Anthony's exile abroad. As a result, the cast of characters is relatively small: we meet Edward IV, Edward V, a few Woodvilles, Anthony's lover, and Elizabeth's long-time attendant and confidante. There's a cameo appearance by Thomas Malory and a couple of very brief ones by the future Richard III.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Anthony's and Elizabeth's stories, and had tears in my eyes after reading both (which doesn't happen very often, especially when I know the ending). Anthony's tale, especially the love story Darwin gives him (which I found very plausible) and his terrible grief when he realizes that his charge Edward V is at the mercy of Richard III, is very moving. Elizabeth, who's so often reduced to a caricature by historical novelists, is beautifully drawn here. She's strong-minded and courageous, yet vulnerable. There's even a touch of humor here and there, as when Elizabeth's earthy sister Margaret comments on the queen's morning sickness.

The contemporary story, Una's, was well done also. I didn't find it as compelling as the medieval ones, but Darwin did a nice job of working the historical strands and the contemporary strand into an integrated whole.

Darwin has researched her novel with care, and she provides an afterword putting the tales of Anthony and Elizabeth in their historical context.

I heartily recommend this novel.

A twin narrative encircles this intense drama centering on Una Pryor, a historian who travels from Sydney to London to make peace with her past, and that of siblings Antony and Elizabeth Woodville, who lived through the noble sufferings of the Wars of the Roses. All three are severely tested throughout the course of this novel as they embark on their pilgrimages. Of course, such is the way of history with Elizabeth Woodville caught up in the machinations of a Machiavellian Richard, Duke of Gloucester who seeks to usurp the throne from her two young princes, and also that of Antony, given legal guardianship of the Ned, the eldest Prince by Edward IV`s own appointment, but who is soon imprisoned in Yorkshire, and later murdered by Richard. Meanwhile, Una is desperate to find something impersonal to hold onto, something that won't remind her of her husband Adam, who recently died of cancer back in Sydney. A researcher who wants to write about of Antony and Elizabeth Woodville, in terms of their books, (Antony was the first writer that Caxton printed in England), Una's ultimate desire is to make Elizabeth and Antony breathe and to tell us something about them and also that of Edward who seized the throne from Henry VI.

Family, affinity, allegiance, these are things shape everybody's life, both in the present and in the past are important facets of this novel. While Una has ostensibly come back to England, to sign-off on her long-dead English life, creeping over her is the thought that they still do shape it. This isn't a professional visit. Una must sell the family house, the Chantry and to see her family, her Uncle Gareth and her older sister Izzy, and her brother Lionel in order to sign away all that was once important to her and go home. The Chantry, the home of the family printing business, the Solmani Press is now cared for by the aging Uncle Gareth. Set before the Thames, wet cool and slightly rotten, this once thriving business has been beset with tough financial times. Now the House reeks of the dry office-smell of dusty files and fax machines and has a damp underlay of mildew and is in a solid layer of despair of which weighs down in Una "like a riverbed above which life goes on swirling by."

As the fog of a missing Adam fills her head, hanging between her and everything else, Una reconnects with Mark, her childhood companion who was much loved by Uncle Gareth, but who mysteriously vanished when Izzy and Una were teenagers. The Pryor is a family who are changing sides, a delicate family matter - just like the business of Edward IV's tumultuous Kingdom. While Izzy is determined that the family archive would be safe in a university library in San Diego, a the possibility of rescue for the Chantry comes when Mark suggests an appeal to put the estate in a type of trust. This causes something inside of Una to stir, something small but fierce, perhaps desire and even love.

Darwin constantly plays out Una's pilgrimage of love and against that of Antony and Elizabeth. Anthony understands that he will still die, all the while prayerful and wracked with guilt that he didn't more to protect his nephews. His chief terrors realized, those for his boy Ned, "who is his son in all but name." He had done no plotting but only fulfilled the late King's charge as best he could. And then there's Elisabeth, the grief, a sickness that overtakes her body, lamenting the loss of her husband, Sir John Grey, and Edward's fanatical courting of her, and later her reluctant marriage, and the danger of sacrificing her good name and her honor as a woman and as a mother when Richard issues his final command of the blood royal and takes away her remaining son. The author packs her novel with significant material, vivid and poignant, the lovely Elizabeth appears to be much like Una - both are widows and both suffer from disappointment and the hands of men, while Antony and Mark maybe separated by time, but both are wracked with regret that they could have done more. Rich in period detail, both in the 15th century and in modern day England, Mark and Una's trip to Sheriff Hutton, Eltham Palace, Towton, the Minster and the City of York along the river Ouse, add another colorful layer to the beautifully accented historical sections. Meanwhile, history continues to turn like fortunes wheel where pain and grief are hate fear and love are no more than a shadow. While the novel`s intricate narrative structure is sometimes confusing, most notable is Darwin's deftly handled integration of memory and history which ends up being as fleeting and as transparent as a scrap of gauze tossed to the wind. Leonard July 09.