Victoria

November 7, 2016
Inspired by the diaries of Queen Victoria, British TV producer and author Goodwin (The American Heiress) mines a rich vein of royal history with the ascension of the impetuous and imperious 18-year-old—whose sole companions were dolls and a lapdog—to the English throne in 1837. “Your subjects are not dolls to be played with. To be a queen, you have to be more than a little girl with a crown,” scolds a dying lady of the court whom Victoria has cruelly shamed. It is a heartbreaking lesson as the new monarch navigates the palace and political intrigues under the guidance of her charming and lovelorn prime minister, Lord Melbourne. It’s this relationship between the impressionable teen and her attentive middle-aged adviser that forms the irresistible emotional center of Goodwin’s rich and passionate historical novel. “When you give your heart it will be without hesitation... but you cannot give it to me,” Melbourne tells Victoria after she confesses that her prime minister is “the only companion I could ever desire.” Rejected, Victoria begins the stormy and politically fraught courtship with her German cousin and future husband, Albert. That true-life ending, however, pales in comparison to Goodwin’s timeless recounting of a young girl’s aching first love.

December 1, 2016
The teenage Queen Victoria, raging against her mother, crushing on her prime minister, and not impressed by her loser cousin Albert.Goodwin (The American Heiress, 2015, etc.) wrote this novel imagining the adolescence of the woman whose rule defined most of the 19th century just as her television script of the same story went into production in England; in her acknowledgments she thanks the actors and her daughter, a "teenage queen" herself. When the death of Victoria's uncle, His Majesty William IV, puts her on the throne of England one month after her 18th birthday, she is legally in charge and ready to seize the reins of power, disappointing her mother and her adviser Sir John Conroy, who were counting on controlling her. Brushing them off like gnats, she announces, "For a start, I do not intend to stay here at Kensington. It is miles away from anything, and quite unsuitable as a royal residence....I think I shall look over Buckingham House. It is in the centre of town, at least, and I believe it has a throne room." Her plan to ditch her mother and Conroy out in the burbs is quickly shot down by her new best friend and adviser, Prime Minister Lord Melbourne, who explains that "if you leave your mother behind at Kensington, there will be talk of an unpleasant kind, and that would be a shame so early in your reign." Soon hopelessly in love with the handsome older statesman she calls "Lord M," the little queen hasn't much more than a glance for the suitors vying for her attention. Then from Germany come two cousins from her mother's side--blond "demigods" Ernst and Albert. "Such a prig" is her judgment on the latter--but readers who remember their history know that something's gotta give.Fun, romantic, and suited for both adult and teenage readers. On its way to PBS in January 2017.

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October 15, 2016
It has become popular to contextualize certain monarchs not in toto as they ended up (dour or corpulent or tyrannical or pathetic) but in the prime of their youth. Henry VIII has received this treatment, and Queen Victoria now seems to be the sovereign du jour. Goodwin's (The Fortune Hunter, 2014) novel of the young queen, painted here as a guileless romantic heroine, covers her accession and her marriage proposal to Prince Albert, a latecomer who forms a romantic triangle with Victoria and the prime minister, Lord Melbourne. Typical for royal fiction, the drama comes from the machinations of factious, self-serving courtiers and politicians attempting to control or destroy the monarch, in this case a sheltered, immature young woman fumbling toward effective queenship. The sympathetic, older, and rather tragic Melbourne guides her and alleviates her loneliness, and the relationship between the two underpins the novel. Goodwin wrote this simultaneously with the screenplay for Masterpiece Theatre's Victoria, slated to air in early 2017. Highly recommended for historical-fiction collections.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Best-selling Goodwin always draws in fans, but expect extra buzz and lots of promotion as news of the TV series elevates demand for the book.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)