LitPick Review
During Elizabethan England, Queen's Elizabeth's cousin
Mary Queen of Scots has been forced to flee her country
from rebels and seek refuge in England. Mary, while being
the Queen of Scotland, is also heir to the English throne,
and some believe that she is the true monarch while
Elizabeth is merely an imposter. Fearing assassination and
a royal overthrow, Elizabeth imprisons Mary against her
will as a "guest" of the Earl of Shrewsbury, George
Talbot, and his wife Bess. George and Bess, at a great
expense to them, are forced to host Queen Mary and her
entire court. As they sink deeper and deeper into debt,
their residence becomes a center of intrigue and rebellion
against Elizabeth. But as George begins falling for Mary
and Elizabeth and her steward, William Cecil, become mroe
and more paranoid, will George and Bess be able to escape
with their fortune intact, and hopefully their lives?
Opinion:
I love books about Tudor England and think that Philippa
Gregory is a fantastic writer, so I knew I would enjoy The
Other Queen. The one problem I had with this book, that I
didn't have with others written by Gregory, is that it was
really hard to get into. In the beginning, there wasn't a
lot of dialogue or movement in the plot, just a lot of
narration, made worse by the fact that The Other Queen is
written in first person. It wasn't until the 200 page mark
that the book picked up and I actually started to enjoy
it. I didn't know that much about Mary, Queen of Scots, so
it was neat to read and learn about her. The characters,
especially George and Bess, had a lot of depth, and it was
interesting to get into their minds and see their thoughts
and feelings. I would recommend The Other Queen to any
fans of historical fiction.
KEYWORDS
Read more reviews by this Litpick Book Reviewer: MSnoe