The other queen

This novel covers the captive years of Mary, Queen of Scots, who trusted Queen Elizabeth's promise of sanctuary when she fled from rebels in Scotland and then found herself imprisoned as the "guest" of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and his indomitable wife, Bess of Hardwick.

The newly married couple welcomes the doomed queen into their home, certain that serving as her hosts and jailers will bring them an advantage in the cutthroat world of the Elizabethan court. To their horror, they find that the task will bankrupt them, and as their home becomes the epicenter of intrigue and rebellion against Elizabeth, their loyalty to each other and to their sovereign comes into question. If Mary succeeds in seducing the earl into her own web of treachery and treason, or if the great spymaster William Cecil links them to the growing conspiracy to free Mary from her illegal imprisonment, they will all face the headsman.

The novel concludes with Bess effectively ‘divorcing’ the Earl and regaining all her land that she brought to the marriage as settlement. The Earl spends the next 16 (?) years living with
Queen Mary as a prisoner. Always a gentleman, he never acts on his love for her, and is distraught when Queen Elizabeth eventually orders her beheading for treason and she is killed.

Interestingly written. Each short chapter is written in the first person of different characters. The reader gets an insight into the thoughts of Bess, the Earl and Queen Mary. ( )

I've only read one other book by Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl) and I love it. So I had high expectations for this one...it didn't meet them. I was really bored with the way the story was told...I feel like the POV was missing from people on the other side of the story. It's possible that she tells Elizabeth's side in a different book, but something could have been included here. Even if it was Cecil's account. It just felt like something was missing. ( )

Having just left Sarum and the individual narratives that made up that historical framework I was a bit let-down when I saw that this was similar in style. I personally am not a big fan of the changing viewpoint from the perspective of the three main characters: Mary, Bess and George.The one character that I did find somewhat interesting was Bess - rare to find such a seemingly strong person in charge of their own finances during that time period. There was redundancy about how one woman was more beautiful than the other that got to be a bit much. Read it, now moving on.. ( )

Pretty good... other than Mary and Queen Elizabeth, the characters were fairly one-dimensional, but I do love how Gregory always puts a little twist in her depictions of historical events. Her version of what happens is always historically plausible but never what I assumed from reading other accounts. ( )

Worst of her books in my opinion ( )