For Queen and Country

Synopsis

In June 1837, the eighteen-year-old Victoria wakes up to find that she is Queen of the most powerful nation in the world. Can this tiny girl prevail against the men who believe that women are too hysterical to rule? And what are the secrets behind her famously passionate relationship with her husband, Albert?

From one of our greatest historical writers comes a new take on one of our most beloved monarchs... Victoria as you've never seen her before.

Review

My interest in this book sprang from the television series. History is an interest of mine that comes and goes. I have phases of obsession with it, British history especially. Victoria has always been a monarch of interest to me for the simple reason that we share the same name! As a child people would ask me if I were named after the queen and my response was always yes because I always loved the association with someone so important and memorable to British heritage. It still to this day makes me feel immensely proud to be a British woman sharing her name. We have probably all studied a little about who she was and the details of her reign in school history classes, but I think this book adds a little more personality to my varying degrees of knowledge about her. She certainly was a character that’s for sure. There is a very regal and rich feel to the prose of this piece most definitely prompted by the subject matter. It’s interesting to learn of her trials and tribulations from her perspective, to be thrust into such a complex world at such a young age with so much responsibility must have been utterly terrifying. Descriptions of places and people mean that the imagination of the reader merely creates the world and brings to life the words on the page in their own mind with very little need for any added unscripted creativity. Which I have to say from time to time can be rather refreshing. Sometimes I believe to have watched a television adaptation of a book can ruin its overall effect, but in this case I think the exact opposite, they complement each other very well and I am glad to have now seen it from both perspectives. Bringing together fact and fiction for the purpose of entertainment can be tricky, the balance needs to be right. The fact should reinforce the fiction making it more realistic, and in turn the fiction should complement the fact. If it is done well enough the audience should not be able to clearly determine which parts are which. That I believe to be the case with the ITV production.

There is something about reading books about historical figures that never gets old. I’m sure I’ll always have the same enthusiasm for learning all I can about our past because one is never too old to learn something new.

**Disclaimer** I in no way wish to alter or sway anyone else’s view by anything discussed in this post. these are merely my own opinion feel free to agree or disagree as you see fit.

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