Patricia Finney

Was ever a monarch so beset as Elizabeth I of England? Seldom in her long reign was she not feuding with someone, and few feuds were as bitter or prolonged as the one over the fate of Mary, Queen of Scots. Even after Mary was implicated in an assassination plot in 1568 and sentenced to die for treason, Elizabeth dragged her feet over the signing of the actual warrant for 19 long years, then suddenly relented and signed the document, only to remove from her court many of the councilors who show more had urged the action, once the execution had taken place.

Patricia Finney has built a complex tale of intrigue around this reversal, basing it on the search for a supposed diary kept by the young Princess Elizabeth, which would have destroyed her as a monarch and a woman.

This densely plotted tale is rife with espionage, double-dealing, turncoat agents, secret codes, hidden passageways, and disgraced clergy. It meticulously sets out pictures of both court life and the desperate struggle for survival of London’s poor, rich in detail and developing an all-too-plausible tale of events in Elizabeth’s life before she ascended the throne. It even toys with mysticism, assigning some of the narrative to the Virgin Mary, who manages to be almost as interesting as the mortal characters carrying the action.

Readers looking for a court-heavy tale of Tudor lives, loves, and feuds, may be disappointed at the emphasis on spies and double-dealings, while those attempting to winkle out just who among Elizabeth’s court was allied with whom may be impatient with a wandering subplot about an unfrocked nun desperate to make a dowry for her great granddaughter. And anyone coming to the novel as a stand-alone is apt to be dismayed that there is an earlier volume, ‘Firedrake’s Eye’, which introduces some of the main fictional characters in this tale.

Finney’s research is exhaustive, and there are many fascinating details about life at court and among the populace. Finding these nuggets may distract the reader from the fact that the pace is glacial and that there are more characters and subplots than hairs in one of Elizabeth’s wigs. show less

The quality of this series remains consistently high. Historically interesting and accurate, and also just plain fun. The other thing I appreciate enormously about this series is the wonderful women. Its a challenge to write well about women in the past. Some writers make them anachronistically feminist, others make them uninterestingly spineless. PF Chisholm instead gives me strong women who are still very much of their time.

This third installment adds a layer of emotional depth as Carey show more comes to understand that being openly attentive to the (married)woman he's in love with is putting her at physical risk from her jealous husband. There's not much of anything he can do about it. Under the laws of the time her husband has every right to beat her, so now he has to decide - does he continue to pursue her and put her in danger? Carey has always been a flirt and a gallant, and isn't accustomed to concern himself much with the fallout from his attentions. But he loves and admires this woman. show less

Patricia Finney's second Elizabethan espionage thriller is even better than the first (and the third is even better still, but we'll get to that.) Narrated by the Madonna herself, the Virgin Mary, who moves from scene to scene with grace and compassion, the muti-stranded narratvie concerns an old scandal from childhood of Queen Elizabeth, and the Book of the Unicorn, which contains the secret, and the factions searching furiously and ruthlessly for said book which promises to either destroy show more or grant absolute control over the Queen.

A Catholic priest hiding from the pursuivants hears an old woman's confession, and hatches a scheme. Protestant priest-hunters and courtiers, pressing for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots have a chance to put Elizabeth herself in her place. A man wakes in the Tower with no memory of who he is, Simon Ames comes back from the dead to rescue an old friend, and the Queen's Fool sets out to save her mistress.

A brilliant thriller that lays out life in the Westminister Court of the Virgin Queen, from the morning routines of the Queen and her women to the cut-throat world of the courtiers and counsellers, to the lowest cellar where the night-soil is collected and stored, the plots and counter-plots, the politics and the unforgiving religious hatreds are all brought to sinister, dangerous life.

Superbly written, full of detail and living, breathing characters and sly commentaries on religious extremism and misogyny, this is a top-notch novel of historical intrigue. show less

Rather different, more intense and horrifying instalment in the series as Elizabeth is accused of witchcraft by her wretched husband and the scheming Lord Spymie and an even schemier witchfinder. It's brutal, all the more so for Carey's enforced dithering while she endures torments as he tries to marshall forces to rescue her and come up with a plan that won't see them both hung, but also behaving quite unheroically - Finney has never been starry-eyed about the nature of her main show more protagonist, though there's no doubt he is doing his best for his one true love. There is a mystery element there - what are Spymie and the witchfinder's ulterior motives for this? But it's mostly an agonisingly suspenseful thriller following Elizabeth's ordeal and the struggles of various allies to come to her aid. The pov is divided out amongst quite a few characters, something I've always liked about these books since Finney's gifts for characterisation are formidable. Still a severely under-rated series, Finney's determination to keep it going is laudable. show less