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Title: The Lady Elizabeth: A Novel
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Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
List Price: $25.00
Our Price: $12.24
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| Customer Reviews: |
| The Lady Elizabeth: A Novel by Ballantine Books Good, not great, historical novel | The book is a good read. Allison Weir does have command of this age and portrays her characters well. Characterizations, dialogue, and setting are all realistic and believeable. The story is historically accurate told with creative twists worthy of a good writer of historical fiction.
This is the first fiction work that I have read by Weir; her other non-fiction works are highly recommended. This too is a good work and an interesting look at Elizabeth before she became the queen. Four stars only because it just doesn't seem to present anything all that new (maybe I've read too many Tudor novels). Still, glad I read this one as well. | | The Lady Elizabeth: A Novel by Ballantine Books Can't Wait for the Movie- What a Great Book! | | Fans of The Other Boleyn Girl will love The Lady Elizabeth. Alison Weir has authored several historical biographies including The Six Wives of Henry VIII. This time, Weir uses all of her talents in history and research to write a fictionalized account of Elizabeth I, before she becomes queen. Sure to be another best seller for Weir and the twists and turns in The Lady Elizabeth have the makings of a great movie. | | The Lady Elizabeth: A Novel by Ballantine Books Fantastic! | | I had been waiting on this one for a while and as expected, Mrs. Weir does not disappoint. I was compltely engrossed from page one. As usual, the book paints a beautiful picture rich with texture and colors with each new character it introduces. Like any Tudorfile, We have read them all right? This one fed me like it was my first Elizabeth reading. Kudos to Mrs. Weir for taking a topic she has already written on and giving it a fresh new look for rabid fans like me! | | The Lady Elizabeth: A Novel by Ballantine Books Weir does it again.......... | Allison Weir's wonderful reputation as an historian might have been challenged after she authored her first novel "Innocent Traitor". Proving "Innocent Triator" was no fluke, Weir again takes her knowledge of history and passionate voice to create an engaging novel about Elizabeth I, when she was simply "The Lady Elizabeth".
Undoubtably Weir uses dramatic liscense when necessary, but she supports 80% of the novel with historical truth.Weir uses historical truth as a background for many fictional posiblites, which in turn provide a possible explain for Elizabeth's character and policital savvy. I especially enjoyed Weir's portrayl of Mary/Elizabeth's relationship, often loving but obvioulsy ambivelant- any one could understand how Elizabeth reminded Mary of Anne Boleyn, whom she blamed for her mother's heartache and her own demise into bastardy.
As far to the question of whether Elizabeth was actually a virgin, Weir points in ther author's note that no one can be aware of what goes on in a person's private life- especially when that person lived over 400yrs ago. As a novelist, Weir does an entertaining job of taking history and asking "what if" while keeping readers entertained in the process. | | The Lady Elizabeth: A Novel by Ballantine Books The other Tudor girl | Historians have long speculated on why, really, Queen Elizabeth I never married. Did she have an abnormality? Did she string along her suitors for diplomatic reasons? Was she unwilling to give up any of her freedom or power? Was she haunted by her mother's ill-fated marriage or terrified of childbirth?
Alison Weir explores this issue in a new novel covering Elizabeth's life up to her accession. Her mother Anne Boleyn's execution overshadowed her childhood, which was then punctuated by a sequence of stepmothers. Katherine Parr was the only one to last long enough to become like a mother to Elizabeth (the sixth queen narrowly avoided Henry VIII's deadly wrath). Katherine couldn't protect Elizabeth from every torment, though: her last husband Thomas Seymour managed to damage Elizabeth's reputation, and Katherine herself died in childbed. Weir finds the key to Elizabeth's resolve to remain unmarried in these tragedies' effect on her, tragedies inextricably linked with sex and marriage. The most dramatic event along these lines I found to be a bit far-fetched, and Weir has certainly used poetic license for dramatic effect; but other than this and a few other unknowable things, she's very attentive to historical accuracy.
Regarding the question of how Elizabeth came to be the Virgin Queen, this novel's explanation is a bit less illuminating (and more verbose) than nonfiction works like David Starkey's Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne or Alison Weir's own biography of Elizabeth. As in the biography, Weir has written engagingly (she has abandoned the multiple-first-person device of Innocent Traitor), often drawing on period sources like letters or reports for the dialogue, and weaving in the perspectives of many characters, including Elizabeth, Henry, Kat Astley, Katherine Parr, Philip, and especially Mary (who comes across as a bit flat, and in the end, unsympathetic).
This is an enjoyable novel, great for those interested in all things Tudor or looking for another diverting book about Elizabeth. | | The Lady Elizabeth: A Novel by Ballantine Books Product Description | Following the tremendous success of her first novel, Innocent Traitor, which recounted the riveting tale of the doomed Lady Jane Grey, acclaimed historian and New York Times bestselling author Alison Weir turns her masterly storytelling skills to the early life of young Elizabeth Tudor, who would grow up to become England’s most intriguing and powerful queen.
Even at age two, Elizabeth is keenly aware that people in the court of her father, King Henry VIII, have stopped referring to her as “Lady Princess” and now call her “the Lady Elizabeth.” Before she is three, she learns of the tragic fate that has befallen her mother, the enigmatic and seductive Anne Boleyn, and that she herself has been declared illegitimate, an injustice that will haunt her.
What comes next is a succession of stepmothers, bringing with them glimpses of love, fleeting security, tempestuous conflict, and tragedy. The death of her father puts the teenage Elizabeth in greater peril, leaving her at the mercy of ambitious and unscrupulous men. Like her mother two decades earlier she is imprisoned in the Tower of London–and fears she will also meet her mother’s grisly end. Power-driven politics, private scandal and public gossip, a disputed succession, and the grievous example of her sister, “Bloody” Queen Mary, all cement Elizabeth’s resolve in matters of statecraft and love, and set the stage for her transformation into the iconic Virgin Queen.
Alison Weir uses her deft talents as historian and novelist to exquisitely and suspensefully play out the conflicts between family, politics, religion, and conscience that came to define an age. Sweeping in scope, The Lady Elizabeth is a fascinating portrayal of a woman far ahead of her time–an orphaned girl haunted by the shadow of the axe, an independent spirit who must use her cunning and wits for her very survival, and a future queen whose dangerous and dramatic path to the throne shapes her future greatness. |
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