The genre I call boychik lit is centered on men. Chick lit – like Sex and the City – is relationship games for women. Sometimes I read chick lit to see what our better halves are thinking. Elizabeth the First Wife is about Elizabeth Lancaster, a Shakespeare scholar from Pasadena, who is recently divorced from a famous Hollywood boy-toy. He barges back into her life to ask her to coach him in a production of Midsummer Night’s Dream, which he hopes will help him shake his reputation as an empty-headed hunk. As they prepare to do the show at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, real-life lovers chase each other ridiculously around the maypole of both serious and casual relationships. Men, you might read Elizabeth the First Wife to find out what they think, but if you think you’ll get a clue, think again. (My new novel Christmas Karma is also set in Pasadena, and I’m hoping women as well as men will find it funny.) A nice, light "beach read." A bit predictable, but as far as these sorts of books go it isn't bad. I'd give it 2.5 stars if half stars were an option. It has some of your usual "chick-lit" tropes in that you have this intelligent, successful woman who is unlucky in love, and of course her transformation can't be complete until she remedies that situation. There's a love "triangle" that totally fizzles way too early on in the story and the main conflict revolves around whether or not Elizabeth and her new love will hook up or not, and whether or not a secondary character's gubernatorial ambitions would or would not be thwarted by a Shakespeare scandal (we were supposed to care about this, I suppose). Towards the end of the book there is an inaccuracy which mentions that Elizabeth the I had her sister, Mary Queen of Scots, killed. Mary Queen of Scots was not sister to Elizabeth the I. The author is confusing Mary I of England with Mary I of Scotland. Pretty basic mistake and I'm sure I'm not the first one to have caught it.
What do You think about Elizabeth The First Wife (2013)?
Fun and funny. Wish there was a tad more romance. The family relationships were great.
—Lele
Excellent writing. Very humorous and insightful into a woman's point of view
—adil
Predictable yet the perfect read for vacation days.
—Teresa
