Elizabeth I by Margaret George

Since I found George's recent Helen of Troy slow, I thought I should report that her Elizabeth I is wonderful. The novel begins with the build-up to the first Armada and ends with Elizabeth's death. It is written in Elizabeth's own voice. I imagine it took courage to write in the first-person voice of one of the most inscrutable figures of early modern history.

I found the humility and weariness that shone through in Elizabeth's narration completely authentic and believable. It seems to me (the husband and I had a discussion of this after watching The Tudors), that Elizabeth's strength lay in her realistic assessment of her own power. In this she seems to have been the opposite of her megalomaniac father.

Which brings me to another thing I appreciated about this book -- that Elizabeth thought about her mother and father from time to time without making a huge deal out of it. At one point she thanks her mother for having the courage to seek a high-profile position in the world, and she often wishes she could discuss state affairs with her father. She doesn't agonize excessively over her parents' tortured history. That's believable to me. It's a remarkable story to us, but Elizabeth had lived with it all her life.

If you love historical fiction, give this book a shot. I got it as a Kindle ebook from my local library.

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