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This is NOT Elizabeth! - but still worth a read.

Customer Rating:

Much of the book is satisfying. To a modern reader the four point tension, Elizabeth, her spymaster Cecil, her first great love Robin, and his wife Amy, handles well, with other characters made severely secondary. Though in the case of Blanche Parry, rather too secondary perhaps, more of that below. I did like the early uncertainty by Elizabeth on court procedures, as she had been much shut away; giving the court expert Robin some of his first power base with her. Also their shared horror from being incarcerated in the Tower rings powerfully true. The details of Court life are richly portrayed: for example the almost tribal precedence about eating at meals. The detail on birth control is fascinating. I should have liked rather more ordinary detail of everyday and court dress, harness and names of horses, their training (Robin was Elizabeth's Master of Horse after all) and the physical effects of travel. But over all the general tapestry of period living is well done. The book fails to gradually develop the characters: they stay much the same start to finish apart from Robin who is gradually corrupted and crazed by his family breeding to ambition. That is done well except he speaks too freely of becoming King (since to say so came close to treason). Cecil is peculiarly static, he has a thousand spies right from the coronation date, and is the same detached puppeteer at end as at start. I should have liked to see him acquiring his skills from a lower basis, especially as he is one of the most fascinating pillars of Elizabeth's reign, a mover and shaper to be compared to the later French Richelieu. Amy, the unwanted wife, does change in the course of the book, she deteriorates - logically. But her condition does not mature so that in the second half the passages about her are monotonous and an effort to read. Too much of the same dreariness, though I liked the use of her to explore Tudor religious tension. But Amy is neither pushed to enough extremity to provide interest, nor does she grow and adapt to her situation. The result is repetitive and boring, a rather ordinary depressed wife clinging and clanging like any immature teenager - which she was not. To be fair, her stupidity in loving her husband intensely, yet completely failing to understand who he was and what he needed, is painfully well drawn, and has a tragic inevitability that Gregory shows contributes much to her fate. It is Elizabeth who is the most failed in this book. We find her at the outset of her reign, and it is often emphasised that she was young - mid twenties. But to her contemporaries that was not young, more like a late 30s woman now with all the urgency of the biological clock that suggests. Possibly this mistaken view of her youth brews up her astonishing wimpiness, in a portrait like no Elizabeth to be believed! She barely ever comes up with an idea of her own - extraordinary. Well, yes she has a temper about the way Mass is celebrated but none of the statecraft in the book is hers. Yet this is someone who had played the deadly royal games of Europe since infancy, who knew her politics like the back of her hand, and went on to rule with an astuteness that rivalled her much underestimated grandfather. I became more and more disbelieving that Elizabeth, by now equivalent to a mature 37 or 45 these days; who had survived countless plots, threats to her life, and the perilous royal labyrinth where stupidity meant death, since birth, whose strength of character is a legend over the centuries - this giant of a woman tamely submits to a lover? She might have lived on the edges of the Court at times, and her claim to legitimacy was threatened through some difficult periods, but still she lived most of her life as a high royal lady, well accustomed to command, and thinking, breathing politics. Her own mother had been a political gamester of no small repute (though it is significant that Gregory's book about her dwells mostly on her sexuality). At a critical point in Elizabeth's growing up she was supervised by the formidable Katherine Parr who ruled the country as regent when the infamous Henry, Elizabeth's father, was abroad. Elizabeth was soaked in the arrogance of Tudor majesty, and the considerable scope for Tudor women's power. When Robin interfered with her in State matters she is presented to us as so helplessly lovesick she cannot deny him anything and simply say no. Rubbish! She might have found it difficult in the throes of saexcual passion, but not impossible. Nor is her total inability necessary to the plot - Cecil had plenty of motive to act as Robin's nemesis without author Gregory reducing Elizabeth to a simpering little tart. Where is her famous Tudor temper? We see it in other situations but Robin, when later becoming haughty and overbearing does not fire her anger? Very strange. Repeatedly the Scots Mary using Elizabeth's coat of arms drives her to rage. Yet Robin encroaching blatantly has her sweetly murmuring yes and resorting to deviousness behind his back like any idiot wife fiddling the housekeeping! No no this is not Elizabeth but a modern nincompoop who knows little of the royal habit of having its own way. This is a common flaw in Gregory's books where we meet women well described when dependent, afraid, doomed, helpless but much less strongly written when they have the option to take charge and act in their own right. Gregory may argue that she is exploring an Elizabeth "unmanned" by romantic passion, vulnerable in the first years of her reign. But this does not ring true. Elizabeth learned never, never to permit sex to rule her in her terrible imprisonment after loving Tom Seymour. She had her mother's fate always shadowing her, and that of Kat Howard. More, she had her sister's blighted reign to teach her yet again that female lust cannot be allowed to interfere with her safety and rulership. By the time she came to her affair with Robin her personal self control would have been ironclad. She may have wavered, bowled over very briefly by the sweetness of her Robin, and this would have been a fascinating aspect of the plot. But that could only have been a mater of weeks. At the very first sign of his arrogance interfering with her touchy sense of queenship there would have been a palace storm. History is clear that he remained the subservient partner. No, no one interfered with that lady's right to command. Gregory's books do not draw enough on the power sources between women. She does give us a friend for Amy the abandoned wife which fits well with Tudor households and their female hierarchies. But power centres too much in the men in this - and other Gregory books. In this one as I mentioned, all the political understanding comes from the men, Cecil and Robin, though with some odd bits from the clumsy Amy. This is simply not believable, Elizabeth being who and what she was. But there is also a neglected area close to Elizabeth who though she was jealous of young beautiful women nevertheless fostered strong intellectual relationships with other women. Her brother's court and her own were star points in women's history for scholarly learning and political acumen among women. Most of all I missed the character of Blanche Parry who though mentioned is not brought from the shadows as the staunch friend and older counsellor she was. She was even more loyal than Kat Ashley who is given a small prominence here, as Parry betrayed Elizabeth under questioning, and it was Parry who stayed with Elizabeth during her ordeal in the Tower. Elizabeth certainly felt deeply challenged in her first few years as Queen, but she was never forced to rely solely on the jealous competitive support of the males Cecil and Robin. Blanche was at her side, acting as her secretary, keeper of her books, go-between with Cecil, gatekeeper for her suppliants. But Gregory is not an author who is at her best with either powerful women, or their networks of authority with other women. She shines at sex, dependency, and failure. I happily agree with Gregory's interpretation of Amy's death. She gives us the evidence in fine style without dragging what is after all a novel into too much scholarship. The research is very much there even so. The end of the book is abrupt, truncated. Was her deadline suddenly upon her? We leave our hero sadly exiled, Elizabeth estranged, Cecil cleverly in control. Yet these three remained close for a generation after that so why not give us a chapter on how they managed it? Gregory fails to realise fully that her characters are not just ill starred lovers but the shapers of an age, who went on to work together closely in spite of the passions of the plot she gives us. The story should not have been dumped so suddenly. This book like her others, flawed though it is, is well worth reading. I would not trouble to critique it so carefully if I had not been drawn into it and enjoyed most of it a great deal.

An Elizabethan Tug of War

Customer Rating:

I love Philippa Gregory's Tudor novels and am only sorry that I have now concluded reading all of them. This one has some problems that disappointed me - Elizabeth is a giggling, easily-led dope, and not the shrewd manipulator and politician that we know her to be from historical record. I suspect Dudley and Cecil are fairly accurately represented, however, and I was very interested in the viewpoint of Amy Dudley, the innocent wife cast aside in favor of power and the title of King. This was an interesting read, and one that kept me turning the pages, but it was not up to the standard of the other Tudor books. I preferred Boleyn Inheritance and The Constant Princess for intrigue. I hope for better things in the future.

A woman who happens to be a queen

Customer Rating:

When i finished with The Queen's Fool, i've hated Elizabeth for her laughing at her sister's misfortune. Philippa has deliberately darken the character of Elizabeth in that book. But in this one, Elizabeth is no more than a woman who happens to be a queen. I would like to believe her love to Robert is real, so it makes the saddest love story of monarchs. Honestly i did not fully finish the book. There's still about a 100 pages left, but i just couldn't stand to see Amy killed, worse, i don't want to see how Robert MUST break up with Elizabeth. In terms of plots, the story is not as attractive as The Queen's Fool and The Constant Princess.

Brilliant but not as good as the others

Customer Rating:

I only discovered Philippa Gregory a month ago and I am already a big fan. Having read 'The Other Boleyan Girl' and 'The Queen's Fool' and thoroughly enjoyed them I was quite excited to read 'The Virgin's Lover' and I am pleased to say that although not as good as it's predessesors it is still a very worthwhile read. Previous reviewers have summarised the story so I won't repeat what's already been said but let me just state that this book is excellently written and definitely deserves to be on the bestseller list. Perhaps other reviews have been a bit mixed about this book. I think this is because this book is bound to suffer from comparisions to it's predessors. Arguably it isn't as addictive but it is still good although at times it is a bit slow-paced especially Cecil's parts, which seemed like more of a history lesson than a historical novel. It is at best brilliant, at worst mediocre. I don't think this has anything to do with the author's ability to write but more that she chose a relatively short time period (two years in fact)so there's an absence of material to write about. However on a seriously critical note the ending is somewhat abrupt and unexpected leaving the reader feeling agitated and wondering why the final part of the story is rushed by so hastily. It is mainly for this reason that I give this novel 4* instead of 5. The only reason I can give for the mixed reviews is that perhaps people don't like the way Gregory changed her style with this novel. In her previous books she writes in the first person a technique that I myself felt worked incredibly well helping to draw us straight into the action and really making us empathise with the character. However in this book the author writes from the point of view of four characters: Elizabeth, Robert, Amy and Cecil. This approach works well in that it does show us the bigger picture and gives us a more objective view of events but on the other hand it suffers in that it lacks the personal style we have come to associate with Gregory's books. That was the only slightly debatable problem with this novel and is more of a personal preference than a serious fault. Perhaps four characters was a bit too adventurous. Three would have been sufficient. What I liked about this book in particular is that the characters appear very human and are therefore easier to relate to. What also is very interesting is that it is very difficult to discern from reading what side Gregory was on. The characters are in many ways not very likable; whether this was Gregory's intention or not remains ambiguous. Despite Gregory's attempts to portray Amy as a pious, strong woman desperately clinging to her faith and her straying husband during a time of great political and religious upheaval I still couldn't help but find her a weak, whining and aboveall irritating character. I always sighed with agitation when I came to reading Amy's parts. Undoubtedly she is critical to the story but I felt there wasn't enough story to keep one interested especially when you compare her with the glamour of court. I liked the portrayal of Elizabeth. Too many history books depict Elizabeth as this fierce woman. It was refreshing to see a more human and vulnerable side to her although I found her inability to perform her role as Queen without the presence of Robert rather irritating as the story progressed. As for Robert: well what can I say? Of all the characters Robert is the best progressed from The Queen's Fool. In fact he was probably my favourite character in the book. He had great presence (some very good one-liners might I add and the romance scenes are excellently executed) and even towards the end when his true intentions are revealed one cannot help but feel sorry for him. I think that's what made this book truly great: characters that irritate and annoy you but yet you wanted them to happy. Overall I would highly recommend this novel though it is advised to read 'The Other Boleyan Girl' and 'The Queen's Fool' beforehand as it does put the story into perspective.

Dissapointed	Customer Rating:
Having read a few of pg's books i was expecting this to be in the same league as The other boleyn girl and boleyn inheritance ect.. but sadly it wasn't, i found i was bored half way through and couldn't wait to finish it!