Customer Reviews

The Queene's Cure

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is the fourth book written by Karen Harper that features Queen Elizabeth the First as the main character. So it is a little far-fetched to think that Queen Bess might be a crime-solving sleuth, but who is to say she wasn't? She was a brilliant ruler, with many interests, so it isn't so far-out that she would want to help solve perplexing mysteries of her day,especially when the mystery involves herself or one of her close subjects.
I find these novels fascinating. They are well-researched,and presented in a lively, intriguing manner.
I look foward to the next installment of this series.

Sharon Galligar Chance, TIMES RECORD NEWS

Elizabeth had a long hard road to travel before she ascended the throne as England's Queen. As a child growing up, she knew any day could be her last and when she was imprisoned in the tower, she thought she would never get out. Though she has full control of the government, she remains alert that her enemies both Catholic and Protestant are waiting for the chance to topple her from the throne.

Following a visit to the Royal College of Physicians Elizabeth finds an eerie looking pockmarked effigy of herself in the waiting coach. Although she tries to pass it off as a prank, Elizabeth knows that this could be the opening gambit in a plot to assassinate her. When she discovers the leech laden body of a naked woman on her private grounds, she is sure of it. She and her Privy Plot council investigate her closest enemies but it's only when she recovers from a case of the pox do the people loyal to Elizabeth knows in what direction does her enemy lie.

This is the fourth installment in this historical mystery series and THE QUEEN'S CURE is as superb as the first three. The role of doctors and medicine in Elizabethan society plays an important part in the solving of this intricately woven mystery. However, it is the characters, especially the vulnerable Queen and her loyal followers who make this historical novel a winner.

Harriet Klausner

I really tried. The premise interested me - Queen Elizabeth's court - someone terrorizing the queen - the appearance of dead a dead body in her private garden -a mystery waiting to be solved.
At page 164 I gave up and this one is in the donation box.
The story involved a load of uninteresting characters - most especially Meg or Sarah or whatever each character wanted to call her. I new the answer to the mystery after the introduction of characters in the first few pages. Why it took the author 350 pages to tell this tale is simple...poor writing.
She tried to string you along with a variety of likely criminals, but the story was just too obvious - and all that happened subsequently was just too boring and/or totally unbelievable. If you want a good mystery - this is not it.
If you want a good historical fiction - this is not it. I would suggest something by Sharan Kay Penman or Rosalyn Miles if you want this era.

The fourth book in Karen Harper's excellent series involving sleuth Queen Elizabeth I is the best so far and easily the most exciting. The Queene's Cure has a fast-paced climax against the backdrop of the horrors of the pox in Elizabethan London. What also makes this novel frightening is the brief glimpse into the medical profession in the mid-sixteenth century. Harper mentions in her Author's Notes that medicine during this era was frequently shocking. With some of the cures mentioned in The Queene's Cure, it's a wonder more patients didn't die from the medicine rather than the disease. Did no one ever question the source of ground unicorn's horn?

But people, including Elizabeth, were so scared to death of the pox and the plague that they were willing to try anything. Not as lethal as the plague, the pox left its survivors horribly scarred for life.

In The Queene's Cure, someone leaves a very life-like effigy of Elizabeth in her coach during a visit to the London Royal College of Physicians. The face of the effigy has been scored to imitate pox scars. She sets her Private Privy Council to investigating who put it in her coach and how.

Her Private Privy Council without Meg Milligrew. Her former apothecary Sarah Wilton alias Meg Milligrew has been banished from court for borrowing one of Elizabeth's gowns without permission and impersonating her Majesty, even forging her signature.

Sarah runs an apothecary with her brutish and often violent husband Ben. She longs to be back in good graces with her Queen and in her court. Until then she must hang out on the fringes of the crowd and in alleyways when Elizabeth appears in public.

The Private Privy Council is finding the investigation frustrating. Then a body of a young woman is found in a fountain in the royal courtyard. She's first thought to be a pox victim but when the nature of her death is revealed, the mystery takes a very dark turn.

Then Elizabeth nearly dies of the pox. She recovers but soon realizes that her infection was not an act of God. She's stunned at the measures her enemies will go to remove her from the throne. In pursuing the conspirators, the queen and friends are caught in a rather too-convenient trap.

Harper turns up the action and suspense as Elizabeth nearly meets the same fate as the girl in the fountain. The author also bridges the seemingly impossible gap between amateur sleuth and queen of the realm with no problem. One would think that a monarch of her standing would not be involved in such adventures. However, Harper spins stories that show Elizabeth consistent with everything else that has been written about her. The conundrums and mysteries that face her are those that directly affect her and the ones closest to her, like her life-long companion Kat Ashley, her advisor Lord Cecil, her fool Ned Topside and the mute Gil. Therefore, Elizabeth has a personal and vested interest in solving murders.

The first three novels were exciting but Harper bumps up the action and suspense in The Queene's Cure. I hope the trend continues.

Other historical mysteries have been set during the long reign of Queen Elizabeth I. In Harper's series, the queen herself becomes the "detective." In this episode, Elizabeth finds an eerie looking pockmarked effigy of herself in her waiting coach. Well aware of the dangers of small pox, when dead bodies of women seemingly scarred by the pox mysteriously appear, the queen is determined to undercover the perpetrator of these grizzly pranks.

Harper gives us a pro-active, young queen well aware of her tenuous hold on the crown. The center piece of the story is the historic impact on Elizabeth when she indeed did almost die from the disease. Elizabeth's fascination with Lord Robert Dudley (Robin) features heavily in the plot as does her trusted, and not so trusted, advisers, including the faithful William Cecil. There are back references to the execution of Sir Thomas More, which served to galvanize his Catholic supporters and thus threaten Elizabeth.

The state of Elizabethan medicine is revealed here and is discussed at length in the informative Author's Note. The depiction of Elizabeth's personality and the credible period speech patterns give the reader a taste of the queen's England. A nice map of London, circa 1550, is included along with a much needed list of past events and dates, and a genealogy of the "Tudor Family, Friends and Foes." The "queen's cure" was the annual event of touching scrofula victims, performed by the reigning monarch to supposedly "cure" them.

Great as usual. I just love these stories about Elizabeth I. I'm a fan of hers and will real everything I can get about her

If you are a fan of real historical fiction, don't waste your time or money on this book. The writing is trite, the story contrived and plot wholly unbelievable. I make it a point to give every book a fair chance, and have only put aside two books in my life as totally unreadable. This one nearly made three.

This book is one the best mystery books I have ever read... Karen Harper has managed extremely successfully to blend the historical setting of the Elizabethean era with a well thought and written plot. The imagination combined with her obviously well founded knowledge of the history results in a breathtaking story... Those not familiar with the imminent profiles of the period may find the book difficult to grasp, however, for those who are interested in this spesific era, this is definitely not a book to miss....Congradulations to Karen Harper...

The Queene's Cure is where Karen Harper loses me and possibly many of her readers. The premise of this entire book is that Doctors are Uncaring, Evil Monsters, while Quacks are Good and Wise and Better than Doctors And Care, Oh So Much, About Everyone.

Give it up, Karen Harper. You can turn doctors into devils and quacks into saints, but herbalists and other quacks are still to a person without exception evil, conniving conmen whose "wisdom" extends only to knowing how to steal thousands of dollars from their deluded, sick, unhappy victims whom they pretend to care for, smirking up their sleeves all the while, while at the same time braying about how "greedy" doctors are. Nothing you can write will change that, and especially not a novel about Elizabeth I!

The plot is hardly worth mentioning given the audacious anti-science and anti-evidence mentality of the writer.

This book is not even worth pulping, it's so bad.

I understand this is historical FICTION, but basing a plot on Elizabeth I's interest in making Britain first in healthcare is preposterous. One would hope that this author's next book in the series is more fiction and less fantasy!