Archive for 'Queen-Mary'



REVIEW: The Queen’s Fool by Philippa Gregory

Dear Mrs. Gregory,

112_queensfool.jpgHaving read and loved “The Other Boleyn Girl,” I hurried out and bought “The Queen’s Fool” when it was first released three years ago. Then….life happened and despite the fact that it sat on a table right in front of me for that long, it’s taken me until now to pick it up and start reading it. And despite the fact that I had to take my cat to the vet and then my car died on me today and I had to spend a few hours getting towed, borrowing another car, then driving out to pick mine up when (thank God) it only turned out to be a minor problem, I managed to get all 500 pages of it read in only two days. I was glued to it. I devoured it. I once again wondered why I have only read two of your many books. I must remedy that.

A young woman caught in the rivalry between Queen Mary and her half sister, Elizabeth, must find her true destiny amid treason, poisonous rivalries, loss of faith, and unrequited love.

It is winter, 1553. Pursued by the Inquisition, Hannah …

REVIEW: By Love’s Command by Helen Carras

Dear Ms Carras,

This one starts out as a tad more like a historical novel than a historical romance. Kind of in the Plaidy/Lofts style. But the second half turns up the romance.

It’s 1558 and 17 year old Jean Hamilton is a spirited Highland lass who’s been sent to the French court to wait on her sovereign Queen, Mary Stuart. At 14 Mary is still more a girl than a Queen and the two form a friendship as Jean begins to learn her way around the sumptuous royal palaces and the intrigues that abound in them. She has an up close view of the political maneuvering among France, Scotland, England and Spain in which royal personages are just so many chess pieces to be wielded in marriages and alliances. There is one man she can’t get out of her mind and heart, a handsome young Englishman named Thomas Randolph who travels to the various courts of Europe in the official service of his Queen, Mary Tudor and with the secret friendship of his friend, Elizabeth Tudor.

When she is taken prisoner by an English privateer during her Channel crossing back to Scotland, Thomas comes to her rescue and takes …