Here's what I wrote about this read in 2008 (although I can't recall a single thing about it now): "A fun historical fiction read. The Danish royal family has some issues, and the physician gains an upper hand (even though the aristocrats never really lose it). The "Stuensee Era" results. Those royals!" ( )

I picked this in my summer reading challenge as a book based on true events. Here events I knew nothing of, King Christian VII of Denmark and the people around him, esp. Dr. Struensee. It was meant to be historical fiction but the style was odd and took some time to turn towards a more novel setting, there was alot more that was just history. It was informative since I didn't know this history but it was not presented in a way that made me think this was what actually happened. The story is fairly disjointed and I started to loose track of which advisors to the King were which. Overall, and I did read up on this part, is that King Christian was, by the standards of the day, quite mad. Certainly he was very sensitive and prone to very emotional outbreaks and also just a pawn in about everyone else's game. I'm not sure who he would be treated today but keeping him under control was the focus in his time. Thus, the Royal Physican, Struensee. No one really comes off well but he seems the most kind to poor Christian but then the story took several odd turns (once again, I think historically accurate) and Christian, his young English Queen, and Streunsee all suffer the consequences, It was not a really enjoyable read and I am not totally sure why it was a best seller but I did learn some history from it. Overall, I think I would prefer a real history and not this style.

Who controls the Absolute Monarch? And what happens when that monarch, even though mad, to get interested in Enlightenment and when people around him think it is a good idea for him to marry a boring English princess who turns out to be anything but? Quite the interesting book, showing the complexities of the main characters and the isolation they live in while changing Denmark profoundly in the 1770s. You may have seen A Royal Affair - the book is much better. ( )

*** Good read. Enjoyable book, do read it if it sounds interesting to you.

I had a hard time rating this book. I really liked the characters, the setting and the story overall, but the style of writing made it a tougher read than it should've been. It made me put off finishing this book, even though I wanted to finish it (and eventually did). I'd say the story is a 4/5, but with this writing I cannot give a rating higher than 3 stars. ( )

The life of the unfortunate Christian VII of Denmark (1749-1808) has long excited the curiosity of writers of all complexions, from Goethe to Dario Fo, although - despite the fact that one of the main characters was British - it doesn't seem to have been done very often in English yet (The lost queen (1969), by Norah Lofts is the only English version mentioned in the list on Wikipedia).

As Enquist tells it, the central characters are Christian himself, an intermittently lucid, mentally-disturbed young man who has become king at the age of 16 and been married shortly thereafter to an even younger English princess in whom he has no interest whatsoever; the queen, who is making up for a very sheltered upbringing by discovering the sexual power she can exert in her new role; Struensee, the idealistic young German physician (keen reader of Holberg and Rousseau) who accidentally finds himself in a position to deputise for the king, both in the queen's bed and in attempting to drag the backward and corrupt kingdom of Denmark kicking and screaming into the 18th century; and - naturally - an éminence grise, Guldberg, who is scheming against all of them. And equally naturally, it all ends in tears, as Enquist is clearly expecting it to.

Enquist is particularly interested in the opposition between the open, optimistic, and politically-naive Struensee and the secretive, vengeful and moralistic Guldberg, as expressed in the ways that both of them establish bonds with the confused and frightened Christian and react in their different ways to the potent sexuality (Enquist clearly insists on there being potent sexuality, even if that's not something you normally associate with Hannoverians...) of Caroline Matilda. This all gets tied in clever ways into the political currents of late 18th century Europe - the lofty ideals of the Enlightenment philosophes compromised by their association with people like Catherine of Russia and Frederick of Prussia, the cynical aristocrats who run Denmark for their own benefit and are happy to have a powerless king, the peasants whom nobody really cares about in practice...

Entertaining and well-written, but maybe a bit too predictable. ( )