Synopsis:
The orphaned daughter of Henry VII’s widow Katherine Parr finds herself at court, ostensibly as a lady-in-waiting but in reality to serve Queen Elizabeth as a white magician.
Review:
The Red Queen’s Daughter is one of the last of the galleys I picked up at Book Expo this year. I don’t read a lot of historical fiction but I was intrigued by the magical aspect to the story. The book has a good balance of historical detail (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived–anybody remember that) alongside a “training” type story as Mary learns to harness the powers inherent within ordinary objects. She does this by considering how an object can be a metaphor or symbol for something else, and the beauty Kolosov gives to the mundane belies her alter ego as a poet.
If you enjoy books like Maria Snyder’s Poison Study series, this is a good one to pick up when it comes out on October 2nd.
Is this due for publication in the UK do you know? Celia Rees apart, we have precious little historical fiction for YA and this sounds interesting.
I’m not sure–the galley I picked up was from the US publisher and only had that information on the back.
Historicals have never been my bent either, but like you the magical aspects of this one intrigue me.
I wonder why we like magic/fantasy but not historical fiction? Both are alternate worlds… interesting to ponder.
Well, in my case I think the problem’s purely psychological. I’ve been a history-phobe since grade school. I like to explain how cruddy my history teachers were by relating the tale of the one who told us that the dinosaurs lived 10 billion years ago; I positively itched to ask him what they were doing in the 5 billion years before the Earth formed—riding around in spaceships?
I love the image of dinosaurs in spaceships!