![]() ![]() This is a disappointing follow-up to an enjoyable first novel. ![]() Jane Caros memoir, Plain-speaking Jane, will be published in October by Pan Macmillan. Where Just a Girl took a distant historical figure and turned her into a girl that modern readers could understand and relate to, Just a Queen reverses the process by introducing an unlikeable character who is in her 50s and looking back over the past 25 years of her reign. Only in girl-specific product ads (dolls, clothes, gendered toys) did little girls get to appear. As a young adult novel, it is less successful. Looked at as a historical resource for younger readers, Caro hits some of the highlights of Queen Elizabeth’s reign and introduces the conflict between cousins in an interesting manner. She’s repetitive and contradictory, and seems to spend more time in tears over the challenges of her rule than she actually does ruling. It is a shame then that Caro’s Queen Elizabeth, taken purely as a character, is nearly unbearable. As Queen Elizabeth recounts her reign so far and the events that led to Mary’s beheading, we get a glimpse into the life of one of history’s most renowned leaders-and one of the most powerful women to have worn a crown. This follow-up to Just a Girl opens with Queen Elizabeth mourning the death of her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. ![]()
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