“A stunning novel set in the Tudor court, as the rivalry
between Queen Mary and her half-sister Elizabeth is played out against a
background of betrayal, conflict and passion.
The savage rivalry of the daughters of Henry VIII, Mary Tudor and
Elizabeth, mirrors that of their mothers, Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Each will fight by any available means for the
crown and future of the kingdom.
Elizabeth’s bitter struggle to claim the throne she believes in hers by
right, and the man she desires almost more than her crown, is watched by her ‘fool’: a girl who has been forced to leave her
homeland of Spain, as a Jew fleeing the Inquisition. In a court where truth is wittily denied and
lies are mere games, it is the fool who can speak plainly: in these dangerous times, a woman must choose
between ambition and love. Elizabeth will
not make the same mistakes as her mother.”
The teaser for this book does not really do it justice; it
makes it seem as if the book is more about Elizabeth than anything else, but
this is not true. The book is told from
the point of view of Hannah Verde (or, Hannah Green), daughter of a secretly
Jewish printer and bookseller, after she is brought to the court of the young
Edward IV only a short while before his premature death. In a series built upon historical facts,
Hannah represents a deviation from this technique. She has a gift of “the sight” and,
essentially, has premonitions and sees angels.
Following one of these visions, Hannah is brought by Robert Dudley to
court as his little spy. Without
detailing the progress of the book in too much detail, Hannah’s loyalties are a
very complex mixture of devotion, girlish love, admiration, and familial
responsibility. She “changes hands”
several times throughout the book from Robert Dudley to Queen Mary, then to
Elizabeth, and back and forth, back and forth.
It is a great device to capture important details from all sides without
having to use an omniscient narrator.
The reader only knows as much as Hannah knows.
The parts of her story where she switched households between
Mary and Elizabeth were interesting; I enjoyed the insights into their
characters. However, I think the most
interesting were the bits where we saw Hannah’s betrothal to Daniel and
everything that follows after it becomes too dangerous for her Jewish family to
stay in England. I believe Hannah is a
supremely strong individual – I cannot imagine surviving what she does.
All of the plots, the scheming, the subversion that we know
of the Tudor court from Gregory’s previous books remain in this one. I think the structure of this book was a wise
way for Gregory to incorporate the stories of these half-sisters instead of
creating two separate books that would have had a great deal of overlap to the
point of being detrimentally repetitious.
I particularly enjoyed the portrayals of Elizabeth and Mary from Hannah’s
eyes. I could absolutely see notes of
Katherine of Aragon in Mary (especially the passion with which she loved her
husband – for those of you who have read The
Constant Princess, you know that Katherine calls the passion of the women
in her family their curse) and both Henry and Anne in Elizabeth (in Elizabeth’s
easy Tudor confidence and her ability to get what she wants from others). I didn’t, however, see much of them as they
were portrayed in The Taming of the Queen. Perhaps because that one was told from the
point of view of Kateryn, a woman who was determined to love the girls and
their brother as if they were her own?
Overall, I very much enjoyed this book. It was an easy, interesting read. Hannah’s story was extremely interesting and
it served to broaden the world far past the limitations of England’s
shores. Gregory did an excellent job on
this book. Though it strays from the
format of her other books in the series, it is definitely worth the read.
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