The Queen of England: Coronation - Court...

Queen Victoria is dead, killed along with her whole family in a terrible terrorist attack that shook the empire and led to Juliette, young, inexperienced and far from the throne as the next queen

 

The New World Order has claimed responsibility for the deaths and threatens not just Juliette’s reign but the world itself; Juliette must try to expose this conspiracy while securing her nascent throne, some inconvenient romances and the hunt for Excalibur itself.

 

Fantastical Steampunk is one of my favourite genres - I do like the whole aesthetic and plot of running around in dirigibles with mechanical arms and steam powered gadgets - but to throw magic, unicorns (unicorns!!!) and arthurian legend in as well and I am sold. We’re taking those elements - magic and machines - and engaged in deadly attempt to take down a shadowy conspiracy that would plunge the whole world into chaos by any means necessary, with battles, shadowy plans and lots of hidden agendas and looking behind every corner for who the enemy is.

 

If anything I wish this book had explored this more because the world we have laid out here is really excellent. The existence of magic, Excalibur and air ships it all tantalises so much - but that’s kind of the theme of this book: tantalises. We have Excalibur with apparently lots of powers and perhaps its own agenda but we don’t really explore that.

 

We have a fascinating female crime boss with a shadowy but apparently legitimate past running around doing swashbuckling things… but we don’t really focus on her except as a provider of resources.

 

We have the American heiress to a major technological corporation pursuing an illicit love affair and ready to offer friendship - but we don’t really explore her

 

We have a street urchin turned footman with a mechanical arm and lots of streetwise contacts

 

We have a society of magic users who apparently follow the legacy of Merlin and have done so for generations - but they’re only mentioned.

 

A county whose principle resource is unicorns, is in much demand by European nations and appears to be African (it’s not explicitly stated but North Africa was implied), but we only get their prince visiting?

 

It’s like this whole book throws out a million fascinating storylines, characters, world building etc and we don’t actually spend much time on examining any of these amazing things instead focusing on Juliette

 

Who is a decent fun character but kind of overshadowed by the vast potential of everyone around her. Not because she’s bad, but because everyone else around her, everything else around her, could be so amazing

 

 

Part of this is because of the general feel of Juliette. I mean, I like Juliette - as a “plucky adventuress uses grit, determination and intelligence to overcome great odds” Steam Punk protagonist she’s great and would fit nicely with characters from Magnificent Devices, The Finishing School Series, Girl Genius, or even early Parasol Protectorate. Her character is fun and embodies many of the elements I love about the protagonists of these series

But she’s the Queen of England. She is the heir to Queen Victoria (who died, presumably early in her reign since there aren’t eleventy million heirs) at the height of the British Empire. This character running off alone, doing lots of things by herself, being on the front lines and generally not being surrounded by a gazillion staff. Even the assumption of a grand conspiracy from the very beginning seems highly dubious on the strength of one terrorist attack. Juliette has 1 maid, 1 aid of her father’s from before she became queen and a military captain - she picks up a couple of others along the way (complete strangers with no background checks which, again, makes no sense!) but this is a ridiculous lack of support for the Queen of England. The whole framing of her character just doesn’t make sense and we have a weird feeling of dodging between being helpless, alone and lacking resources and then jumping back to “I’m the richest and most powerful woman in the world”. It just doesn’t work and it blends with the odd band of misfits she has around her which… also doesn’t work.

 

 

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Not a ton of information on Arbella but a good read at any rate. It's nice when an author elects to add information about what's going on around the subject at the time instead of filling pages with "We could assume....." or "It's possible......"

I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting this book turned out to be. In my quest to research Margaret Pole, I was directed to this book. Of course, the focus is on Mary, but as her governess through some of the most difficult times of her life, Margaret features heavily through the first quarter of this book.

 

The level of detail included in Porter's narrative is comprehensive without becoming overwhelming or boring. Even after I reached the point in Mary's life after Margaret's death I continued reading and was happy to learn more about this unpopular queen.

 

I had always felt that Elizabeth's greatest strength was PR. How else could this cruel, manipulative ruler end up with a reputation that is so much more positive than her father and sister? Porter's research supports this idea and explains that Mary was not truly as "bloody" as the myth suggests. In fact, she was far less violent than her father.

 

Reading about Mary's life makes it easy to understand some of the decisions that she made, some of which led to disastrous consequences. Porter provides information without injecting motive. She offers suggestions regarding why Mary may have chosen to do (or not do) things, but does not state with certainty, as some nonfiction writers do, why Mary made those choices.

 

Easy reading for nonfiction and great insight into the life of this much maligned queen. 

I've tried to take enough care in completing my monthly TBR that I have some hope of completing it.

 

The First Queen of England has been on my list for months and is part of my research for my next book, so I WILL read it this month.

 

The Greatest Knight I have had to review for months and will stop putting off reading it.

 

Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman is part of my quest to reduce my outstanding NetGalley books.

 

A Tree Grows is Brooklyn is my local book club selection and sounds better than most of what we read.

 

Sacred Treason is the monthly read in More Historical Than Fiction. Join Us!

 

Wolf Hall I am "rereading" in audiobook format and am loving it (again).

 

Robyn Hode is by my Uhtred bashing friend, David Pilling, and the rest are simply books that I can't wait to read!

 

What are you reading this month?

Anne Neville is one of the shadow queens of England. While we have glimpses of her through records, not enough remains to paint a clear picture of her. What we do know is through the lives of her husbands and father. Traitor, Princess, Wife, Widow, Wife, Mother, Queen. Anne Neville packed quite a bit of living into a short lifespan. She was only 28 years old when she died, but she lived more than most people do today in 80 years.

Through the brief glimpses that we are given, Michael Hicks attempts to paint a picture of this lady of the shadows, but I found myself disappointed. He seemed more interested in making a villain of Richard III than trying to glean out more information on Anne Neville, even painting her as complicit in some of what he called "Richard's schemes" but also Anne herself using Richard to gain what she wanted.

I have been wanting to read this book, but I was completely disappointed with the entire read. I felt that to much of the author's personal bias went into writing this book, therefore the waters were muddy even before anyone tries to pick history apart and paint a more thorough picture.
I would not really recommend out this read. While some personal bias is fine, everyone has it, this author goes above and beyond, making the read completely un-enjoyable.