Elizabeth and Mary

Author Jane Dunn steeps her book in the full flavor of the Elizabethan Age. There are plenty of descriptions of sumptuous clothes, jewels, and food, as well as grisly death. The machinations of the nobles and relatives trying to get their hands on the loot are told in lively detail. Like a story from today's headlines, both factions are willing to kill and to die in the name of God. This raw struggle for dominance leaves one woman with no one to trust and the other dead. Donada Peters is without a doubt one of the most gifted narrators working today. While she excels at biographies and historical nonfiction, she brings a golden touch to anything she does. It cannot be said too strongly: She has one of the most beautiful, well-trained voices you'll ever be lucky enough to hear. D.G. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

December 8, 2003
This is not so much a dual biography of Elizabeth Tudor and Mary Stuart as a cross-section of the royal cousins' lives as they intersect in fact and in theme. As a successful, ultimately beloved monarch, Elizabeth has been granted the upper hand by history, but here the mirror images of the two queens' experiences suggests how differently their stories could have ended. The opposing trajectories of their lives—Elizabeth rising from a politically and personally precarious childhood to become a powerful ruler and Mary descending from undisputed Scottish heir to prisoner and self-styled martyr for Catholicism—elucidate the problems of early modern queenship more fully than a single biography would. Opening accounts of Elizabeth's coronation and Mary's wedding serve as an emblematic introduction to their experiences of education, religion, family, marriage and leadership. Unfortunately, these accounts are clearly cut from chapter four, where their loss creates a jarring leap. The dual narrative also leads British biographer Dunn (Moon in Eclipse: A Life of Mary Shelley
) to overdo her interpretation and to repeat incidents and reintroduce characters, seemingly not trusting her readers to keep them straight. However, she does Mary a service by digging more deeply into her childhood and evaluating her more rigorously than many authors have. Her emphasis on Elizabeth's insecurities heightens the comparison between the two queens and renders the decision to execute Mary the turning point in Elizabeth's reign. While this may slightly exaggerate the centrality of the rivalry to Elizabeth's thinking, it nicely captures the intertwined lives of these two women. 24 pages of color illus., not seen by PW
. 50,000 first printing. Agent, Kerek Johns.

This historical novel looks at the relationship between Queen Elizabeth of England and Mary Queen of Scots. The book explores the different views of both women in a time when men were the dominant sex. Elizabeth chooses to marry her country, and Mary chooses to marry men who could improve her position. With a queenly voice, Isla Blair reads letters between the two queens, historical quotes, and pertinent pieces of information. She creates excellent dialogue when necessary, although this is mainly narrative. Her best renditions are Scottish accents for some of the men in the story. An informative novel is presented in a way that everyone can enjoy. J.F.M. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine