I enjoyed this book for the most part. It follows the reign of Queen Elizabeth, her struggles with her love for the Earl of Leicester, her troubles with her cousin Queen Mary, and the usual courtly intrigues found in books like this. I didn't find anything that particularly stood out to me, or made this book unique in it's genre. One thing I did find a bit strange is that the book seemed to be divided into 3 distinct writing
styles. There were poignant moments in the Queen's private life, and
interludes of familial happiness with the Allgraves, then the writer would switch to page long descriptions of battles, then the writer would have the Queen and her councilors engage in dialogue that seems to have been ripped
directly from historical documents. The style of speaking English at the time would be used, which made those exchanges often difficult to follow, while on the same page the dialogue would then switch back to traditional modern English. I wasn't sure if this was deliberate on the part of the author, or an attempt to inject more historical accuracy but it made the reading somewhat cumbersome at times.

This book was originally published in 1977.  As it begins, it focuses on a family called the Allgraves which is favored at the court of young Queen Elizabeth I.  Unexpectedly, the moments that this book concentrated on this lovely family were my favorite sections of the book.   I don't know if they actually existed in British history, but it was quite pleasant reading about their love for each other over the decades, family strife and tragedy, and the free-spirited nature for exploration exhibited by some of the characters. 

The book primarily centers upon the long reign of Queen Elizabeth I...her loves and challenges to cling to the throne.  It deals with her struggle to decide to sign the death warrants of cousin Mary, Queen of Scots as well as the second Earl of Essex, and her resultant emotional torture over those decisions.  It also speaks of Elizabeth's true love for Robert Dudley (who was unacceptable to marry), and her determination to remain a "Virgin Queen."  

There were large passages of war scenes with ships, and these I found a bit tedious to read.  Overall, the writing style flows nicely and evokes that Tudor era very well.  This historical fiction offering does not rise to the level of authorship of the immensely gifted Philippa Gregory, but it was a decent read.

Great historical fiction! For anyone who loves English history

I liked this a lot better than Elizabeth, The Witch's Daughter (the book preceding this one) probably because I've read less on  Elizabeth's reign than I have of the events leading up to it.

It's another short book covering many years so as before there has to be an awful lot of information left out but this seemed to flow much better. More detail of secondary characters and a good section detailing the sacking of the Spanish Armada. I liked the side story of the Allgraves - now I need to know if they were real or made up to enhance the novel.

It's light on the rumoured love interest with Robert Dudley but for me I'm glad because it's been done to death elsewhere so the focus on friendship is far more interesting.

Interesting to read that these books are being re-issued 40 years after first publication and so were some of the authors earliest works. I'll be checking out some of her other later stuff. Many, many years of reading first books of authors for book clubs it's interesting to read the early works and see the burgeoning talent so I'm keen to read more.

It's a lovely piece of historical fiction and as said I'm going to look out for some more.