The Other Queen - Philippa Gregory

Written by Philippa Gregory
Read by Richard Armitage, Alex Kingston, Madeleine Leslay
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Series: The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels
Length: 16 hrs and 32 mins
Release date: 06-25-19
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
 

In her foray into the lives and minds of Elizabethan shakers and movers, Gregory takes on Mary Queen of Scots during her 16-year house arrest.

By the secret order of her cousin, Elizabeth I, Mary is held at the estate of George Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, and his wife, Bess of Hardwick; the latter three share first-person narrative duties.

The book centers on Mary’s never-ending clandestine efforts to drum up enough support to take her cousin’s throne, but the real story is in the clash of two women and the earl who stands between them. Shrewsbury’s refusal to recognize superior intelligence and force of will in his wife, who runs the estate, and in Mary, who tries to make him her instrument at every turn, makes for one delicious conflict after another.
The voices are strong throughout, but Gregory’s ventriloquism is at its best with Bess of Hardwick, a woman who managed to throw off the restrictions of birth, class and sex in order to achieve things that proved beyond her titled husband. …Publishers Weekly

“Her strategy of using 3 narrators was very effective, especially since the reader could look at the same events from very different angles by 3 people whose lives and fortunes had become completely enmeshed. The three narrator’s perfectly embodied the characters they played and completely brought the reader into each of their perspectives and motivations. Each of them allowed me to forget about the known historical outcome and I almost believed that a different ending was possible. “

Note—I was not as detailed in my edit with this edition as I was with the other. I broke it down to years and seasons.