Stars: 2
Review by: MandyApgar
I have a list of things that can turn me off of a book almost immediately. A review headlined with a term such as "gutsy" for historical fiction is one of them. Although I am not the biggest fan of the genre, I have read it several times before, mostly books having to deal with the Tudors. This might have been a lot better if it didn't turn into a bodice ripper. Pretty much everyone with 2 brain cells knows what happened - Anne Boleyn, executed for not giving Henry VIII a son, leaves a bright and impressionable daughter Elizabeth who grows under her father's increasingly bulky and homicidal shadow. That is pretty much the first "book," of which this is divided into 5, all "written" by Elizabeth late in life. The first of my two main problems with this appeared pretty quickly in that one, and in the second - concerning Elizabeth's unstable position at court during the reigns of her siblings.
Problem A - yes, this is fiction, but certain things invented or mess around are harped on quite a bit to the point of irritation and if one knows much of the Queen's life they are aware of the opposite. Like the cases of her 2nd and 3rd stepmothers - Anne of Cleves and her kinswoman Catherine Howard. The latter is portrayed as being dear to the child, kind and indulgent to all others. Which, in all respect to the dead, she was not, and her life story became an impressive chunk of Elizabeth's decision to never marry. Anne of Cleves is constantly put down for her clothes, lack of redeeming qualities, and body habits. Problem being she was not only a great inspiration to Elizabeth (especially in granting her a lifelong love of art and needlecraft) but her sister Mary as well. Those qualities are merely tossed aside into other figures. And then there is the Robin problem. Our dearest Robin, Elizabeth's distant relative and (in all likelihood) great love of many years. Robert Dudley that is. I'd give you a physical description except the author had a tendency of not getting his hair color accurate from one lyrical description to the next so I say forget it. When the Queen is grown and Dudley is her Master of the Horse (an official duty / title) the book turns into an overly ornate bodice ripper as she and the horse of many colors pine after each other for several hundred pages. The actual consummation of the relationship (which may or may not have happened) is, frankly, creepy. As is Elizabeth's tendency in later books to wax philosophical about male attentions in certain particular ways. I doubt the bloody Armada was given as much ink as that heaving bodice of hers. What good the book does, it does very well - showing the character of the Queen, and various period details.
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