Happy Fourth of July! I hope everyone is having a wonderful, happy, safe Independence Day. I spent the last three days in Massachusetts, visiting my in-laws and other friends. It was a very happy, exciting weekend, and today I am spending quietly at home, waiting for H to get out of work. Tonight: fireworks :)
And right now I am reviewing my 56th book of the year, and my first for the Summer Book Challenge: Legacy by Susan Kay.
Elizabeth Tudor was the second daughter of Henry VIII, born of the "infamous courtesan" Anne Boleyn, who was executed when Elizabeth was only four. Susan Kay tells the story of Elizabeth's turbulent and unfortunate youth to the violent rules of her younger brother, King Edward VI, and elder sister, Queen Mary I. She was crowned queen at only 25 years old, the first Protestant queen of England, and sought to unite the religious tensions that had split the nation since the rule of her father. As the years pass, Elizabeth becomes known as a gracious, merciful ruler, who unites England and gives her people a sense of national identity. But as Elizabeth discovers to her great dismay, the price of becoming a just, fair ruler and loving England is high, and may cost her the joy of personal love.
I first read Susan Kay's Phantom, the story of the life of the mythical "Phantom of the Opera", on the recommendation of a friend when I was in high school. The book is one of my favorites, and when I discovered that Kay had written a historical fiction about the life of Elizabeth I, I jumped at the chance to read it. Unfortunately, I was to be disappointed.
Don't get me wrong. Legacy is a decent biography. But therein lies the problem. It is mainly biography, and there is very little in it that reads as historical fiction. If you are a fan of Philippa Gregory (more talk than description) you are not going to enjoy this. Consequently, on the flip side, if you are a fan of biographies with a lot of action, you are going to also be disappointed, as Legacy glosses over the more "exciting" points of Elizabeth's reign (such as Mary Queen of Scots and the defeat of the Armada), relegating them to simple descriptions over a small number of pages. I feel as if Kay tried to make her book the best of both worlds, and ended up falling short on both accounts.
I was also confused by the subtitle, "The Beloved Novel of England's Most Passionate Queen -- And the Three Men Who Loved Her." As a MA history student, I was fairly certain that I was sure who the first two would be. Anyone who has seen the film Elizabeth knows that her "true love" was Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. And within the first few chapters of Legacy, we read all about Elizabeth's teenage romance with Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron of Sudeley. But even by the end of the book, I was left wondering who the third man was who was so entranced with Elizabeth? Was it her loyal "Spirit" and right hand man, William Cecil, Lord Burghley? Or was it her late-in-life favorite, Robert Devereux, the 2nd Earl of Essex? I have my theories, but the book unfortunately leaves much left unsaid.
However. The writing style is good (just as good as Phantom, though she deals with tougher subject matter) and the theories about Elizabeth's mystical reign were intriguing. The idea that Elizabeth gave up her wishes for marriage and children out of a logically-based favor of her country is an old and established one in biography, but seeing it in print in historical fiction is an interesting experience. Also, I have to say: I loved the epilogue. I guess I do have a romantic bone in my body somewhere, because I thought it tied everything together beautifully.
Rating: ***
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