Customer Reviews

The Other Queen

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(46)
2 star:		(36)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

"The Other Queen" is about Mary, Queen of Scots' imprisonment in England, focusing on the early years of her imprisonment. Like "The Boleyn Inheritance", the story alternates between three perspectives. The narrators are George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury and his wife, Bess of Hardwick who were charged with responsibility for the Queen; the third narrator is Mary, Queen of Scots. Bess is an ambitious social climber who initially thinks that hosting Queen Mary will be a way to advance the family fortunes, but who is dismayed to find that it drains their financial resources instead. George on the other hand becomes infatuated with the Queen, which causes irreparable friction in his own marriage.

I've enjoyed other books by Philippa Gregory, but The Other Queen lacks momentum. It's a long book and not a lot happens (and when things do happen, they're invariably taking place somewhere else, rather than happening to the characters who are telling the story). You get the feeling that most of the exciting parts of Mary's life have already taken place, so there is lots of time spent filling in her back story. I enjoyed the book in a mild way, but it felt so repetitive: countless variations on Bess complaining about money, George idealizing Mary and Mary telling us how charming she is. Bess was actually quite a remarkable woman for her time, but she comes across as being so unpleasant that she failed to elicit my sympathy. I was also disappointed that Elizabeth I barely appears - only in one short scene, when Talbot goes to London to meet with her.

As always, Philippa Gregory has done her research. I didn't necessarily agree with her interpretation of Mary's personality, but I couldn't fault it on historical grounds. It did feel however as if she couldn't quite make up her mind what the nature of Mary and Bothwell's relationship had been and why Mary had chosen to marry him, which I think is something that she needed to establish more clearly. Towards the end of the book events also get twisted and compressed, presumably to bring about a neater conclusion. Mary's execution (still 15 years away) is described in a dream sequence: couldn't Philippa Gregory come up with a better way to include it?

I kept waiting for the book to get going, but it never really did. At one stage Bess writes: "I can hardly believe that this nightmare goes on, goes on and on, and we never achieve victory and we never achieve peace". In many ways that reflects how I felt about the book. It's not a bad book, but nor is it terribly compelling.

First the good points about this books.

1. This is Philippa Gregory, so you know that the writing will be well done and the research thorough
2. Very interesting take on the relationship between Mary, Queen of Scots and her husband Bothwell

Now the bad points:

1. As others have noted, practically nothing happens in this book. It drags
2. Most of the action happened in the past and is being retold
3. Unlike TOBG which had snappy dialogue that made you keep turning the pages, this feels like one long monologue told by several different people all droning on and on

All in all, three stars.

In 1568, Mary Queen of Scots sought refuge in England. She has trusted Elizabeth I's promise of sanctuary only to find herself imprisoned on Elizabeth's behalf by George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and his wife Bess of Hardwick.

Ms Gregory has taken the familiar story of the imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots in England and presented the viewpoints of those obliged by Queen Elizabeth to act as her gaolers. The impact on the Shrewsburys should not be underestimated: keeping Mary Queen of Scots captive was not without its costs (both monetary and political). While Mary herself lived, she was both wittingly and unwittingly a focal point for political and religious intrigue.

In terms of the main characters in the novel, Mary herself comes across as manipulative and naive. Bess of Hardwick is far more interesting than her husband George, while Elizabeth herself is torn between removing the threat to her throne and herself and a reluctance to execute a fellow monarch. Ms Gregory presents an intriguing, if not always exciting, picture of a number of people thrown together by fate. This particular version of the story, focussed as it is on Mary's long period of imprisonment, not likely to bring much joy to those who prefer to see more action or a more sympathetic depiction of Mary. I enjoyed the novel without being fully swept up by it.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Gregory has again capitalized on her popularity as a historical fiction writer, specifically on the topic of the Tudors. While The Other Queen takes place during Elizabeth's reign, the focus of this book is on the tragic figure of Mary Queen of Scots and her "jailers," George Talbot and his wife, Bess of Hardwick. The narrative changes voices between the three of them, and each gives their perspective during this tumultuous time in English history.

Bess declares herself over and over again as a self-made woman who has constantly risen in title and wealth through four marriages and her own determination. When first asked to host Mary, she feels honored and is sure she will be greatly rewarded and highly praised. But the cost of housing Mary and her huge entourage quickly takes a toll on her, her fortunes, and her relationship with her husband. George is immediately besotted with his guest and is easily manipulated by the queen. While he sympathizes with Mary, he is a staunch loyalist to the crown and repeatedly declares that he must always be honorable in his duty to Queen Elizabeth. However, his devotion and infatuation with Mary costs him his reputation, not to mention his fortune.

Mary is portrayed as scheming and calculating. She constantly emphasizes her royalty and infallibility as God's anointed queen and stresses her desire to be free. She is confident that Elizabeth would never have the audacity to execute her; she who is the queen of Scotland, the queen consort of France, and heir to the English throne. She believes so strongly that she is entitled to be in Elizabeth's place that she feels no remorse in her plotting to dethrone her cousin. She has no qualms about using her charm and sexuality to influence men to conspire against Elizabeth.

The Other Queen was not quite as captivating as some of Gregory's other Tudor books. There is a lot of redundancy: they move from one castle to another repeatedly, Mary is constantly conspiring and claiming her innocence at the same time, George is relentlessly smitten in his defense of Mary, and Bess is persistently monitoring her accounts and referring to her former husbands. Plus Gregory is very vague in defining Mary's roll in the death of her second husband and in her marriage to the Earl of Bothwell. Aloud, she claims he raped her and she married him in duress, but in her letters to him and in her thoughts, she remains dedicated and fervent in her love for him. This book follows only a short period of Mary's captivity, a mere three years of the sixteen she is held in England under George's guard. But Gregory does a good job in describing the conspiracy of the Northern Lords to free Mary and return her to the Scottish throne and other schemes which lead to the execution of so many papists committed to the release of Mary.

I loved the book "The Other Boleyn Girl" by the same author. Our book club picked this book based on the popularity of that book with our members. Every night I would pick up this book and think, "if I can just read 10 more pages." It was a struggle. At page 70, ready to give up, I read the author's notes in the back which were far more compelling than the book. I convinced myself the book would get better. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Written in diary form by the three main characters, I never felt like I knew the characters. The constant re-hashing of the events by Bess, Mary, and George was not only repetitious and boring, but left out most of the action and intrigue which I knew the author could write. I kept waiting for something to happen in detail. The best that happened was that I finished the book.

If you've never read anything by Ms. Gregory, pick a different book. If you love everything she writes, you might want to read this book. I will wait until the next book is reviewed by a few hundred people before I consider it.

Seriously, can she?

This is kind of a TL;DR, so for those who don't want to read it here's the bottom line - this books sucks, stop cutting out important characters (Walsingham) and mutilating others beyond recognition (everyone else), you can do better, Phillippa!

I'm a big fan of Gregory's prior work - though I can't agree with other reviewers' praise of her research skills: TOBG is fiction, folks, pure and simple - no, Queen Elizabeth was not raised in bucolic splendor by her adoring auntie, and there is zero evidence that Anne's niece and nephew were Henry's kids, aside from court gossip. And if they had been? He would have ennobled them, just like he did his other bastard, Henry FitzRoy. Anyway, sore subject.

However, her writing is usually light and entertaining, historical accuracy notwithstanding. This book, however, fails on both accuracy and readability.

On the readability count: Mary is quite possibly the least sympathetic character I've ever encountered in Gregory's books, with Lord Shrewsbury a close second. She is a conniving wench, and it's impossible for me to understand how anyone can like her. We're told again and again how beautiful, charming, graceful, blah blah blah she is, but she comes off as so obvious and simpering that I just wanted to smack her. And quite frankly, I had to set the book down a couple of times because I was so tired of Gregory's endless repeating of "I am chosen by God to rule! I am an anointed Queen! I can never be killed because I am chosen by God to be an anointed queen!" Literally, I think Mary repeats some version of this about 50 times in the first few chapters. We get it. Once Gregory finally tires of raining down anvils, she turns to writing Mary as the most paint-by-numbers seductress imaginable. You begin to wonder how in the hell any man, let alone a man of Elizabeth's court who should certainly know better, could fall for such silly games, though they all apparently do.

Shrewsbury, of course, falls head over heels. I believe Gregory's intention was to show his adoration of Mary as proof of Mary's pull, even over the most supposedly faithful of men. Unfortunately, Gregory portrays him as a doddering old man at best, an incompetent idiot at worst, and so Mary's seduction (if only emotional, what with his gout and all) seems foregone instead of a triumph. It's not like he's much of a conquest.

Both these characters should be completely fascinating, but by the end I wanted to behead them both myself.

Bess is rather fabulous. She is the only reason this book gets even one star.

Historically: Walsingham gets all of 3 mentions in the book, and he does nothing in any of those mentions. It's just "Oh, there's Walsingham. He has some spies, I hear." Sir Francis Walsingham was basically the head of the Elizabethan CIA. He had the title of Elizabeth's Spymaster, for God's sake. He worked closely with William Cecil, who had created the intelligence network (and, unlike the Elizabeth films, he never 'triumphed' over Cecil - they were friends. He did eventually succeed to Cecil's post as Secretary of State, but that was after Cecil had retired. Incidentally, it was Elizabeth herself who sometimes barely tolerated him, but he was brilliant and efficient so he stayed in favor) but he was the one doing the dirty work and the hands on managing of operations. He ran the network, bottom-line. Cecil then took the info that Walsingham uncovered and used it, as he was Elizabeth's chief advisor. The reason this matters is that it was Walsingham that foiled the Throckmorton and Babington plots and discovered the plans for the Armada, and it was his spies that uncovered the Ridolfi plot. Ridolfi did not go down because he got drunk and some random merchant (seriously?) managed to hop the fast boat to England and tell Cecil. Walsingham had placed spies in Spain, one who happened to be the English navy's premier shipbuilder by the name of John Hawkins. Hawkins discovered the plot, as was his job, and alerted Elizabeth and Cecil. I feel a little bad for Cecil, being portrayed as some obsessive anti-Catholic weirdo who was always apparently lurking about, trying to find people to torture.

No, that was Walsingham. (I kid! I kid because I love, heh.) He was essentially responsible for Mary's death. He was pretty much devoted to taking out Mary from the beginning of his service to Elizabeth. Cecil was more interested in keeping the peace, as long as Elizabeth stayed queen. Cecil wanted England to be a global power, and he knew that he needed peace in order to build up England's resources and make it a major player. If peace meant killing some annoying Catholics, then he'd do it, but that was really rather incidental. Walsingham, however, really really really disliked the Catholics, and getting Mary killed once and for all and thus 'saving' England from the papists was one of his driving forces. Where Cecil and Walsingham agreed was the England was destined for greatness, and under no cirumstances should she be ruled by a foreigner or a Catholic (who would have ties to foreigners (O HAI THAR SPAIN.)) Anyway, he was an incredibly fascinating guy, and it would be nice if he'd for once be accurately portrayed, instead of he and Cecil always being melded into some bizarre uber-powerful hybrid. I just can't believe he was entirely cut out of Mary, Queen of Scots' story, when the man was basically obsessed with, and ultimately responsible for, her death.

Anyway, this is a crappy book, save your money or go buy a history book because I promise the real deal is way more interesting than this tripe.

SUMMARY: The latest in what can be called Gregory's Tudor series tackles the imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots at the hands of her cousin, Elizabeth I. Mary is held captive in England at Elizabeth's behest while Scotland engages in what is tantamount to civil war, while the English people silently debate if perhaps Mary is better suited to their throne than their current monarch.

WHY YOU'LL LIKE IT: Gregory has a gift for making Tudor England come alive to the reader. The sights, smells, and attitudes all ring with a modernity which drags the past into the present. There is no question that Gregory is a talented author who researches well her books.

WHY YOU WON'T: One has to wonder if Gregory has lost her passion for her subject. The narrative is plodding and at times completely boring, with numerous repetitive sections, specifically as related to Mary and Bess Hardwick. Despite recent scholarship on both women, Gregory fails to make their perils in any way impacting, rendering the characters one-dimensional and grating.

BOTTOM LINE: A difficult read, even for die-hard Gregory fans and Anglophiles. There's little to no new information here, and almost nothing which hasn't been addressed - and with more flair - in Gregory's previous novels.

I must start off by saying that I can not give a proper review of this book because I could not finish it. As a big fan of Gregory and historical fiction in general, I waited for three months to get this from my local library, only to be completely surprised to find that it was so boring I had to force myself to keep picking it up! I kept waiting for it to get better, I kept waiting for the characters to inspire my affections, but it never happened. So I came here to read the reviews in hopes I would find a reason to keep reading the book and I have not found one. (I try not to read reviews before I read a book because I hate having plot points spoiled.) Since it's due back to the library, I am returning it unfinished. I really expected much better from Gregory with such an exciting character as Mary Queen of Scots as the main subject. Very disappointed.

Like all of you I am a Philippa Gregory fan. I have bought and read every book that she has ever written. "The Other Queen" is absolutely dire. It is repetitious . It actually does read like a teen ager writing a book report. I am a student of Tudor History. This book has nothing new.
I am disappointed. I expected much more from Ms Gregory . Her story telling is always page turning. This book is like walking through mud. I couldnt wait until Mary finally met her demise and the book would be finished.

I have enjoyed most of Ms. Gregory's novels. I thought her last novel, The Boleyn Inheritance, was amazing. So I was eager to read The Other Queen which is about Mary Queen of Scots.

The story is told from three different perspectives. While the three perspectives worked in The Boleyn Inheritance it doesn't work for The Other Queen. The three different narrators are Bess, George (Bess' husband) and Mary. And to be honest I didn't feel sympathy for any of them.

As I continued to read the novel I kept feeling like I missed out on all the interesting things that happened in Mary's life. I was left with nothing but flashbacks and some strange sexual tension. I pushed my way through 150 pages and after that I had to give up.

If Ms. Gregory wanted to write a novel about Mary's life she should have done so before her imprisonment. I think it would have been far more compelling. But instead she wrote a drab novel where nothing interesting happens. Even the exciting parts were dull as tombs.

Hardcore Gregory fans may want to give this one a go, but I strongly suggest they loan it from the library. I cannot thank Ms. Gregory enough for pushing historical fiction into the forefront, but I hope in the future she writes more compelling novels.