Watch The Lady
Elizabeth Fremantle
Simon & Schuster, Jun 9 2015, $15.99
ISBN: 9781476703121
In 1581 pushed by her scheming mother who wants the family to
regain their positon of influence, Penelope Devereux
becomes a Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Elizabeth. Beautiful and brilliant, Penelope manages to excel
in the dangerous court filled with backstabbing intrigue to become one of the
monarch’s favorite; as does her brother the Earl of Essex. Only Robert Cecil seems to distrust the
siblings. Penelope and her childhood
betrothed Sir Philip Sidney remain in love, but Elizabeth marries her to Lord
Rich. The couple makes a convenience
deal in which she provides him with the heir and spare and he stays out of her
life. However her brother’s bungling
ambition places them in jeopardy unless she intercedes before it wrecks her
much more clever treacherous scheme.
The third Tudor tale (see Queen’s
Gambit and Sisters of Treason) is an
enjoyable Elizabethian drama that focuses on the last decades of the Queen’s
long reign through the rotating viewpoints of enemies Penelope and Cecil. Although there are some incidents that feel
like forced overdramatic padding into an interesting storyline, historical fans
will relish watching the scramble by those of the inner circles and wannabes competing
for power before the anticipated vacuum causes a free for all.
Harriet Klausner
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