The Other Queen

Starred review from May 5, 2008
In her latest foray into the lives and minds of Elizabethan shakers and movers, Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl
) takes on Mary Queen of Scots during her 16-year house arrest. By the secret order of her cousin, Elizabeth I, Mary is held at the estate of George Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, and his wife, Bess of Hardwick; the latter three share first-person narrative duties. The book centers on Mary’s never-ending clandestine efforts to drum up enough support to take her cousin’s throne, but the real story is in the clash of two women and the earl who stands between them. Shrewsbury’s refusal to recognize superior intelligence and force of will in his wife, who runs the estate, and in Mary, who tries to make him her instrument at every turn, makes for one delicious conflict after another. The voices are strong throughout, but Gregory’s ventriloquism is at its best with Bess of Hardwick, a woman who managed to throw off the restrictions of birth, class and sex in order to achieve things that proved beyond her titled husband.

Mary, Queen of Scots, was an imprisoned guest of the Earl of Shrewsbury for 16 years, under the orders of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth. Philippa Gregory employs her impressive knowledge of the Tudor period to create this historical novel, narrated from the perspectives of: Mary, George Talbot (the Earl), and George's wife, Bess of Hardwick. The presence of three narrators serves the book well, helping to ease some of the redundant accounts. Ron Keith presents a genteel and somewhat na•ve Earl, whose fondness for Mary's charms causes him to agonize over his loyalty to his own queen, Elizabeth. Stina Nielsen and Jenny Sterlin portray two sharp-minded women engaged in a battle of wits as one endeavors to reclaim her throne while the other strives to recoup her fortune. N.M.C. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine