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	• The Queen's Fool: A Novel (Boleyn) Philippa Gregory Touchstone, 2004 - 512 pages average customer review:based on 190 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Queen's Fool: A Novel

I absolutely loved the book. There was not only the major plot, but there were many sub-plots. It was very hard to put the book down! I have recommended it to many of my friends. I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen to Hannah, the Queen's Fool.

No Foolin'

Right after I finished The Other Boleyn Girl I had to pick this one up and continue, sort of, the story.

I liked Hannah well enough. I could see many traits in her that I see in myself. Surprisingly one situation she has in extremely close to one I had, and it was interesting to see someone elses take on it, even if the person is fictitious. I was a bit bored with her always talking about her mother's death, but I guess it would have to be traumatic to watch someone burn as burnt human flesh isn't a pleasant smell or memory. I did feel like I would have liked to know more about Daniel and his family. I didn't really get a good sense of Robert Dudley like I had hoped, but I guess The Virgin's Lover will possibly fill some things in for me.

I really felt like the author downplayed on Elizabeth a lot. She was an actress all the time; sick, not sick, plotting, not plotting, schemer, like her mother in the last book; and Mary, so much like her mother, so pleasant all the time. For two girls who spent so much time away from their moms I find it weird that they were both so much like their moms from the previous book.

It's a good book. I'd recommend it to others highly. I do say that I did feel for Hannah when she was taken and arrested. I was hoping that she wasn't going to have to endure the torture that she knew others went through. I did, however, wonder when she was going to realize that her Queen Mary wasn't as pleasant as she made herself. She seemed like she was just off on cloud 9 much of the time. Maybe all those years alone, being made, and declared a bastard, touched her more than anyone wanted to admit.

Even though they called her, Hannah, a fool. She's no fool. In fact she's smarter than many of the people she comes across.

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Religous terror

This book is a big, scrumptious read for lovers of history and for lovers of the work of Philippa Gregory, who is queen of the stories of Tudor times. Hannah Green is a 14 year old Jewish girl who has escaped the fires of the Spanish inquisition with her father, to settle in London. Her mother was burned at the stake as a heretical Marrano, a Jewish convert to Catholicism. Father and daughter live in their place of business, a printing shop, with Hannah permanently dressed as a boy for the sake of safety. When the young King Edward dies, his throne is taken by his elder sister Mary, daughter of Henry V111 and Katherine of Aragon, and who is a fanatically devout Catholic who sets up the burning fields of Smithfield, to torture and burn alive, anyone who is declared to be not totally devoted to the cause of Catholicism. Hannah has the gift of "Sight" and is used by both Queen Mary and her sister, Princess Elizabeth, as a "Holy Fool", to foresee the future, but manages to tread a careful path between both of them. It's a big, informative book with fascinating glimpses into life at Court in treacherous times, as courtiers and citizens alike change their religions and allegiances to suit that of the reigning monarch. It's a wonderful read and one which ended too soon for my liking.

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Not So Great, Not Too Awful

I was hooked by the promise of a main character caught in the intrigues of 1553-1558 England, a pawn between a capricious Protestant princess and Her Very Catholic Majesty who would as soon burn a heretic as look at them. This novel is NOT the book I was expecting, not by a long shot.

The main weakness? Hannah Green, the first person POV. We're told how her mother perished in the Inquisition, but we are then asked to believe that she can love Queen Mary, who shared the same philosophies as those who slaughtered her mother. While she's loving Mary, she has to love Elizabeth too. In other words, her character is weak. She's supposed to be a "holy fool", someone with visions and prophecies, but more often than not she's simply foolish. She has a bizarre romance through the course of the book, but nothing I could bring myself to care about.

Gregory did a wonderful job bringing the characters of actual history to vivid life. Having read her other novels, I think she should stick to that.

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You're a Fool if You Don't Buy This Book!

I am obsessed with Philippa Gregory's Tudor novels. This one originally didn't interest me as much as the other ones but it ended up being one of my favorites. The supernatural/"holy gift" of Hannah's "sight" makes this book a hard one to put down. I look forward to Philippa's new book that comes out later this year.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

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