I love to read historical fiction. I struggled to push through this story. I have read other Romanov stories that were more intriguing and interesting.I did like that the author told a story about someone besides Anastasia. The portrayal of the Zarina being a frail, mentally and physically weak w...
I was disappointed at the lack of historical accuracy, but I won't cover that here because there are all kinds of historical fiction and not all of it has to be accurate.What I didn't like most about this book was that it was silly. I didn't feel like I was reading a novel, it felt more like what...
I invested a lot of time in this book but for the most part I feel it was a wasted effort. I read other reviews where the readers didn't like the book, but I thought it might just have been Jane Seymour is not that likeable a character. I was very wrong. The last paragraph of this book says somet...
This book was a great success. It successfully turned what would be a fascinating life of Mary queen of Scots into a boring Diary of a whining girl. Though it wasn't written too terribly, the over use of the exclamation mark was maddening. Why is every body shouting theatrically? Also, throwing i...
I first read Erikson's novel, The Last Wife of Henry VII, and I loved it; then I read her novel, The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette, and I thought it was okay. Now I've read her novel, The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots, and I'm not sure if I would consider it even okay. I felt the story was ...
This was different. I'm so used to Allison Weir and Philippa Gregory. First of all, there is hardly any mention of Princess Mary (Catherine's daughter, simply a few sentences here and there about her arranged marriages. Catherine never says much about missing her, and seems to be more concerned a...
This was a quick, entertaining read following the dramatic life of Catherine Parr from childhood to her death. Told from Catherine's point of view it spans the history of all King Henry's wives giving the reader a brief overview of much of Henry's life as king & the ill-fated outcomes of each of...
When it comes to Russian history, my knowledge base is not so much "spotty" as it is "basically nonexistent." I read a biography of Catherine the Great last year, which was the first non-fiction Russian history book I had ever read. Alexandra: The Last Tsarina was the second, and before that my o...
Mary started as a delicate little girl who overcame many hurdles and became Ruler of England. Carolly Erickson brilliantly illustrates Mary’s life in Bloody Mary.The life of Mary, daughter to King Henry and Katherine of Argon, was filled with backstabbing, power hungry people and danger around ev...
Elisabetta vive lontana da corte da quando sua madre, Anna Bolena, è stata giustiziata. Dalla morte del padre, Enrico VIII, sul trono inglese siede il giovane Edoardo dalla salute assai cagionevole e, difatti, in seguito alla precoce morte del re protestante diviene regina Maria, moglie di Filipp...
I had not expected a wonderful, thrilling, romantic read. I had not expected a great novel. I had not expected a novel that would become one of my favorites.I did expect, however, a historically accurate, well-written, interesting book with characters I could relate to and like.I did not get any ...
From the moment the fourteen-year-old Princess Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst agreed to marry the heir to the Russian throne, she was mired in a quicksand of intrigue. Precociously intelligent, self-confident, and attractive but with a stubborn, wayward streak, Sophia withstood a degree of emotional bat...
The streets were deserted, an odd silence prevailed. Even the crowded alleyways of Westminster and the East End, usually shrill and raucous with noise, were unnaturally quiet. For a week or more there had been whispers of a papist plot to kill all Englishmen by poisoning the wells. Murrain had sp...
Her nursing, her visits to all the Petrograd hospitals, her train trips to hospitals in Moscow and other distant towns, her battles with the Munitions Committee and the Red Cross and evasive local officials who tried to keep her from scrutinizing their operations, her reading of petitions people ...
As the year 1553 drew to a close the Emperor Charles V looked out over the vast reaches of his land with a jaundiced eye. He was master of most of Europe and much of the New World. His dominions stretched from Spain through Italy, where he was duke of Milan and king of Naples and Sicily, up acros...