beachy reads: "The Other Queen" by Philippa Gregory

I sure do enjoy some good historical smut.  Philippa Gregory is the modern queen of the genre. I’d read one other of her books before, The Other Boleyn Girl, which I wasn't a huge fan of; I thought it went into way too much detail and dragged the story out a few hundred pages too many.  I enjoyed The Other Queen quite a bit more.

The "other" queen is Mary Queen of Scots, cousin and rival of Queen Elizabeth I, and the story centers around the first couple years of an 18-year imprisonment in England that Elizabeth imposed on Mary.  Gregory paints a picture of England as a really horrible place where everyone is spying on everyone else, everyone lies, everyone is jealous, no one is safe.  It’s miserable.  When Queen Mary fled to England from Scotland looking for Elizabeth to protect her, Elizabeth instead imprisoned Mary to prevent her from trying to take the throne that she may have had more claim to anyway.   Mary is put in the care of George Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and his new wife Bess.  George falls hopelessly in love with the Scottish queen, who is known as the most beautiful woman in the world.  Anyone who knows history knows how Mary’s story ends...  It’s not a happy one.

I enjoyed this book.  I thought Gregory did a much better job on this than The Other Boleyn Girl.  It’s a very dramatic time period with interesting characters, and Gregory does a good job of fleshing out the historical record to create a good, engaging fictional story.

One of the things I’ve noticed about the two books I’ve read by Gregory is that the role of women is something she takes great pains to explore.  Let’s just say, thank goodness I don’t live in England in the 16th century!  Despite being incredibly powerful, wealthy, and smart, the female characters are also almost totally dependent on the men in their lives who pull all the strings and manipulate them to their own whims.  It’s really depressing...  so much power and yet so little, just because they're women.

After reading this, I want to go to Scotland, even though almost none of the story even takes place there, and Gregory really doesn’t make it sound all that great (she calls the Scottish “barbarians,” but then again she’s English so I guess that’s typical).  I want to go there and wear wellies and plaid skirts and cozy wool sweaters like I’m in a Ralph Lauren ad.  Doesn’t it sound romantic?! 

So a few weeks ago I put a hold at the library on the next book on my list.  Until that comes in, I’ll keep reading things for FUN.  Right now I’m re-reading one of the Sister Fidelma mysteries by Peter Tremayne.  This is my favorite mystery series, and it’s also historical fiction, but about 7th century Ireland, which is a really super fascinating time period.


* These pictures of Mary are taken from a site called Portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots