The Lady Elizabeth: A Novel (Elizabeth I)
by By Weir, Alison
Category: Fiction , Historical , General

Following the tremendous success of her first novel, Innocent Traitor, which recounted  the riveting tale of the doomed Lady Jane Grey, acclaimed historian and New York  Times bestselling author Alison Weir turns her masterly storytelling skills to the  early life of young Elizabeth Tudor, who would grow up to become England’s most intriguing  and powerful queen. Even at age two, Elizabeth is keenly aware that people in the  court of her father, King Henry VIII, have stopped referring to her as “Lady Princess”  and now call her “the Lady Elizabeth.” Before she is three, she learns of the tragic  fate that has befallen her mother, the enigmatic and seductive Anne Boleyn, and that  she herself has been declared illegitimate, an injustice that will haunt her.  What comes next is a succession of stepmothers, bringing with them glimpses of love,  fleeting security, tempestuous conflict, and tragedy. The death of her father puts  the teenage Elizabeth in greater peril, leaving her at the mercy of ambitious and  unscrupulous men. Like her mother two decades earlier she is imprisoned in the Tower  of London—and fears she will also meet her mother’s grisly end. Power-driven politics,  private scandal and public gossip, a disputed succession, and the grievous example  of her sister, “Bloody” Queen Mary, all cement Elizabeth’s resolve in matters of  statecraft and love, and set the stage for her transformation into the iconic Virgin  Queen.  Alison Weir uses her deft talents as historian and novelist to exquisitely  and suspensefully play out the conflicts between family, politics, religion, and  conscience that came to define an age. Sweeping in scope, The Lady Elizabeth is a  fascinating portrayal of a woman far ahead of her time—an orphaned girl haunted by  the shadow of the axe, an independent spirit who must use her cunning and wits for  her very survival, and a future queen whose dangerous and dramatic path to the throne  shapes her future greatness.