The Wars of the Roses: The original Game of Thrones... in more ways than you know.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ — The Wars of the Roses by Dan Jones

Reviewed by Beau Selby, Carrots With Knives

YOU WILL LIKE THIS IF: If you’ve ever tried to make sense of England’s 15th-century royal civil wars and ended up muttering, “Wait, which Henry is this again?”, well, this book won’t fix that problem entirely, but Dan Jones is still the best person for the job. The Wars of the Roses manages the near-impossible: turning a century of dynastic bloodshed, betrayal, and family feuds into something you can actually follow, and even enjoy.

THE WRITING: Jones writes with the confidence of a historian who knows this material can be a labyrinth of madness if told poorly. Thankfully, his version reads more like a gripping political thriller than a dry textbook. You’ll meet scheming nobles, doomed kings, and the occasional Henry who isn’t immediately catastrophic (heavy emphasis on occasional). The result is a sweeping, brutal, and surprisingly readable account of the chaos that ultimately cleared the stage for the Tudors, those opportunistic newcomers who didn’t win the Hundred Years’ War but somehow walked away with the crown and a dynasty that changed everything.

REPETITIVE AND CONFUSING NAMES: It isn’t Jones’s fault that half the cast shares the same five names or that medieval England treated lineage like a rigged family tree. He keeps it as clear as humanly possible, fast-moving, and more narrative than any account of this madness has a right to be, given the sheer number of people willing to start wars for claims that were legitimate, imagined, or born of sheer ambition.

FINAL THOUGHTS: In the end, The Wars of the Roses is exactly what you want from historical nonfiction: smart, vivid, and coherent enough to make you feel clever for keeping up. It’s the perfect entry point for anyone who wants to understand how England’s obsession with bloodlines nearly tore the realm apart, and how, against all odds, the Tudors turned opportunity into empire.