I always expect brilliance from this author, and I was not disappointed. The way the love story between Alys & Bel wove through the plot was captivating. Well considered characters, historical accuracy and a great imagining of how it would be to become a reluctant spy. Very highly recommended

An interesting idea to have the main character,a laundress,to spy on her mistress.
Especially so when you place her in the employ of the princess of England,later to be queen Elizabeth.
A laundress is rarely noticed,yet sees and hears a lot.
I enjoyed the story itself,it was an easy read,and provided some background on an era I don't know very much about,and the workings of not only the laundry,but the whole clothing of the monarchy.
Enjoyable,but probably not too memorable.

While I am an avid reader of historical fiction, I took a chance on this one because my preferred eras are Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian, so I have no real frame of reference for Tudor era fiction. This appealed to me because of its female lead and the promise of spying and intrigue.

As for whether it delivered on that promise, well…a three star rating for me would be best summarised as 'fine'. There's nothing terribly bad here, but I didn't love it and it took me several days and several sittings to read when I normally devour historical novels, as I just wasn't hooked enough. Plot, character, and writing all have pros and cons worth discussing, so prepare for a fairly detailed review!

Let's start with the plot: our main character, laundress Alys Twist, an orphan who has worked her way up through wealthy households, starts a new job at the palace laundry under the new queen, Mary. At a time of great political and religious upheaval, Alys ends up recruited - or, perhaps more accurately, forced - into spying in the household of the princess, future queen Elizabeth, and through Alys's movements with the household we learn the story of Elizabeth's imprisonment during her sister's reign, The story flows well and the characters generally act in plausible ways, and I found myself googling various characters and events to find out more, which is a sign of interesting plot aspects. The spying aspect was somewhat underwhelming, though I suppose realistic: a laundress in the service of spies is not going to take a hugely active role in their work, but I had hoped to see more intrigue rather than Alys just passing information on to the people who would then presumably do something more interesting with it. It would be more accurate to call her an informant than a spy, as 'spy' implies a level of involvement in the intrigue which was not present here.

The character of Alys was, unfortunately, the weakest part for me. Alys is frustratingly lacking in agency - things just happen to her and she goes along with the flow, until around 80% of the way through where she suddenly decides to be proactive and make her own decisions, but this is an out-of-the-blue change in her characterisation rather than anything that has been built up to. Despite having worked in the service of both Mary and Elizabeth, she doesn't seem to have any particular view on who ought to be queen, nor does she give any suggestion of having a side in the religious turmoil. While there must have been many people at the time who didn't care about who was queen and which faction of Christianity ruled, someone so passive does not make for an intriguing lead character. There's an interesting story in Alys - her backstory is touched upon and the parts I found most interesting involved her talking about her past or interacting with someone from her past - but her passivity in most of the events of the novel make her come across as a fairly bland character at times. Side note about characters: the queen and the princess are much-discussed but appear little themselves - I expected this from the description/title and don't have an issue with it, but I know some people expect to see a lot of the 'famous' characters in a novel like this, so it may not work for you if you do want to see them featured heavily.

The writing is generally good, though I was thrown out of the story a few times by anachronistic language - I'm certainly not suggesting a novel set in the 16th century should be written in the vernacular of the time, but words like 'dibs' and 'hubby' seem gratingly modern in this historical setting. From reading a few Goodreads reviews of other novels by the same author, it seems this is standard for her work and possibly a deliberate decision - but it is jarring and odd. Except for this issue, the novel was well-written and paced appropriately.

On the whole, then, I think a three star rating is fair. The plot was interesting, if not what I expected from a description promising spying, and it was easy to read. However, a frustrating main character and anachronistic language leave this firmly as a 'fine' rather than a 'good' for me, and unless I saw reviews of future novels that suggested these things were no longer an issue, I don't think I'd choose to read other works by the same author.

Many thanks to Little, Brown Book Group and NetGalley for allowing me to read this in exchange for a review - I hope this is sufficiently honest and detailed,