The Queen's Fool : A Novel | Philippa Gregory

The Queen's Fool : A Novel | Philippa Gregory | Almost as good as The Other Boelyn Girl!

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The Queen's Fool :...

	The Queen's Fool : A Novel Philippa Gregory, 2004 - 512 pages average customer review:based on 201 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A stunning novel set in the Tudor court, as the rivalry between Queen Mary and her half-sister Elizabeth is played out against a background of betrayal, conflict and passion. The savage rivalry of the daughters of Henry VIII, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth, mirrors that of their mothers, Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Each will fight by any available means for the crown and future of the kingdom. Elizabeth's bitter struggle to claim the throne she believes is hers by right, and the man she desires almost more than her crown, is watched by her 'fool': a girl who has been forced to leave her homeland of Spain, as a Jew fleeing the Inquisition. In a court where truth is wittily denied and lies are mere games, it is the fool who can speak plainly: in these dangerous times, a woman must choose between ambition and love. Elizabeth will not make the same mistakes as her mother.

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A MUST READ

Wonderfully thought out and written is shows the history while being a great novel. You will read this again and again.

Almost as good as The Other Boelyn Girl!

I thought this book was a fabulous, mesmerizing read. I've been reading Gregory's books in all the wrong order--started w/ The Other Boelyn Girl and then began pretty close to the beginning of her career, with the Wildacre trilogy and a few others that simply didn't hold a candle to her book about Mary Boelyn. Fortunately, The Queen's Fool is richly written, fascinating and multi-faceted. Hannah Green was a wonderfully developed character, and the plot twists among the princess half sisters made this novel quite addictive. I'm half way through The Virgin's Lover now (definitely a sequel to The Queen's Fool, BTW) and am so glad that it seems to be of the same caliber, or better. Yay for the later works of Philippa Gregory!!

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Captivating

At first I wasn't sure where this was going, but then I couldn't put it down. I had read "The Other Boleyn Girl", so some of the references were familiar. I'm sure it's not all literal truth, but I feel like I have learned more about English history and it makes me want to know more.

Great book!!

Another wonderful read from Philippa Gregory. I read this on the heels of "The Other Boleyn Girl" a little out of sequence, I understand. In comparing the two, for me "The Queen's Fool" is far more subtle than "Boleyn Girl" yet is every bit as intriquing and interesting. This author does a great job in making the reader think what was behind Mary and Elizabeth's behavior.

Highly recommend!

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A nice diversion

It took me several starts to get into this book-- I used to love this kind of novel when I was a teenager and would sit curled up in the stacks at my school library, reading during study hall. I'd mark my place at the end of each study hall and put the book back on the shelf to resume reading the next school day. (My high school, at the time, only allowed students to check out 1 novel at a time, figuring no one would read more than that at once. They just didn't understand the ways of serial readers, I guess. I had recently moved to Charleston, and missed my friends from my old home terribly. I found myself in a new and strange world of southern gentility and struggled to understand it and find my place. Getting lost in tales of the Tudors and in English history was a wonderful escape.

Anyhow, thanks to authors like Eleanor Alice Burford Hibbert (who you may also know as Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt and Phillipa Carr) and a marvelous history teacher named Martha Morgan my junior year of high school, a lifelong love of history was ignited.

This book reminded me of those days and those books...I found myself not curled up in the stacks at the Ashley Hall library (which now is much more progressive in its check out policy) but curled up in my living room, snug and safe and secure in my world. (It also was a nice break from the more challenging books I am reading at the moment: magical realism, math and a couple of others....)

As to the book itself, it is a nice diversion-- my brain could absorb the story, remember the history and escape a while in a love story. I will probably read another book by this author, just for the warm memories it would evoke.

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