Product Description

Alison Weir was already one of Britain's most popular historians when she wrote her first novel, "Innocent Traitor", which hit the "Sunday Times" bestseller list to a chorus of praise. Now, in her second novel, Alison Weir goes to the heart of Tudor England at its most dangerous and faction-riven in telling the story of Elizabeth I before she became queen. The towering capricious figure of Henry VIII dominates her childhood, but others play powerful roles: Mary, first a loving sister, then as queen a lethal threat; Edward, the rigid and sad little King; Thomas Seymour, the Lord High Admiral, whose ambitions, both political and sexual, are unbridled. And, an ever-present ghost, the enigmatic, seductive figure of her mother Anne Boleyn, executed by Henry, whose story Elizabeth must unravel. Elizabeth learns early that the adult world contains many threats that have to be negotiated if she is to keep her heart and her head.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #936 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 496 pages

Daily Express
'This novel takes us into a very plausible and frightening 16th-century world... Can Elizabeth survive? Well, you know the answer but this Tudor thriller is so exciting that you find yourself amazed that she did.'

Publishers Weekly
'The author lends a refreshing perspective to well-known characters and events... [An] entertaining look into the rarely explored life of one of England's most fascinating characters.'

Booklist (starred review)
'[A] compelling, even irresistible read... Weir offers an exceptionally perceptive as well as imaginative interpretation of the most significant monarch in English history.'

Customer Reviews

Another Layer to the Story
Alison Weir shows yet again that she is a skilled novelist, this time taking on the complex and hazy story of Elizabeth Tudor's childhood and leading up to her accession.

Elizabeth, as depicted by Weir, is savvy, politically-minded and ambitious. She is also sometimes naive and all-too-human, especially in her dealings with Thomas Seymour. Seymour's behavior would now be properly referred to as molestation, and the sequences where he invades Elizabeth's space, and betrays his wife in the process, were vividly written - so vividly that I was almost uncomfortable. His fate was not an unwelcome one, and he could have taken Elizabeth down with him.

I continue to be fascinated by Tudor historical fiction, and by Elizabeth in particular. Alison Weir is an excellent author, and while I didn't love this novel as much as I did Innocent Traitor, it is firmly in the four-star tier.

Hmmm
I didn't really enjoy this book to the chagrin of all of my friends who loved it. I didn't particularly enjoy innocent traitor either. Miss Weir write factual history much better... whilst reading her novels I always feel she is still giving me a history lesson explaining silly things which ruins the flow of the story.

Not recommended.
I have read several of Alison Weir's non-fiction work, and also her first novel, Innocent Traitor. I thought Innocent Traitor was OK, and hoped that her second would be better.

Unfortunately, I feel it was worse. I found it quite difficult to read through to the end. The characters are quite wooden, and I didn't find the dialogue believable, particularly at the beginning. Elizabeth as a toddler certainly doesn't act or sound like a toddler! I know she is supposed to be intelligent, but I just couldn't find it believable. The dialogue could also have been a little bit more historically accurate at times (less modern colloquial terms).

There are also inaccuracies, which I found disappointing for a historian - Anne Boleyn's necklace was a 'B', not an 'A'. She also did not have a sixth finger; if she had, there is no way that she would have been allowed to (let alone popular at!) the French and English courts.

And, sometimes, she is perhaps too accurate - name-dropping titles of books that Elizabeth is reading. Maybe this was to 'set the scene' a litte, but I found it irritating, and felt like the author was showing off her historical knowledge of the period, rather than developing the description or story further. I've not read any other books that do this.

Personally, I feel that the subject, for a second novel, was a poor choice, especially as popular Tudor fiction author Philippa Gregory has had one published recently. (And does it better too, in my opinion!) Overall this is quite a clunky, wooden and slow read, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it. I will be avoiding any of Weir's future fiction works.