Rival to the Queen
A Novel
گزارش تخلف
- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
- دیدگاه کاربران
نقد و بررسی
In quiet, dispassionate tones, Susan Lyons narrates the account of 13-year-old Lettice Knollys, lady-in-waiting, and soon-to-be rival, to nasty, self-indulgent Queen Elizabeth I. Lettie is privy to the queen's temper tantrums, her very private journal entries, and her unruly passion for Lord Robert Dudley. Lyons describes the burning of Lettie's tutor (for maintaining his Protestant faith during the reign of the Catholic queen, Mary Tudor) from a calm remove that does little to heighten the event's drama. In scenes of passion, whether of anger, jealousy or romance, Lyons's narration lacks the energy to engage listeners. Carolly Erickson's historical view of the period stays faithful to religious and political basics but uses the fiction writer's license to imagine character. Lyons's lackluster narration misses the mark. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
August 16, 2010
The Virgin Queen Elizabeth I and her heart’s consort, Lord Robert Dudley, the earl of Leicester, continue to exert a seductive hold on the imagination as fodder for fiction. Now Erickson examines a rival for Lord Dudley’s affections, Leticia “Lettie” Knollys, a Boleyn relative who, along with her sister, served in Elizabeth’s court and eventually became Lady Leicester. Erickson (The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots) paints Elizabeth as an enormously selfish, envious monster, and Dudley as a handsome rake who’s devoted to his own agenda and to his queen. But due at least in part to politics, his relationship with Elizabeth doesn’t end in the marriage he’s longed for, and the marriage he does have, to Lady Amy, ends with her untimely death, a possible suicide. Dudley’s marriage to Lettie produces a son who later dies, and a liaison with Lady Douglass Sheffield produces a bastard, or “base son.” Erickson writes gracefully, but his Elizabeth is too cartoonish, and Lettie, his narrator, reveals her history with a stereotypical dispassionate air that fails to engage the reader emotionally.
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