The Virgin’s Lover (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels Book 3) by Philippa Gregory (Epub)

Description

In the autumn of 1558, church bells across England ring out the joyous news that Elizabeth I is the new queen, yet one woman hears the tidings with utter dread. She is Amy Dudley, wife of Sir Robert, and she knows that Elizabeth’s ambitious leap to the throne will draw her husband back to the center of the glamorous Tudor court, where he was born to be.

Elizabeth’s excited triumph is short-lived. She has inherited a bankrupt country where treason is rampant and foreign war a certainty. Her faithful advisors warns her that she will survive only if she marries a strong prince to govern the rebellious country, but the one man Elizabeth desires is her childhood friend, the ambitious Robert Dudley. As the young couple falls back in love, a question hangs in the air: can he really set aside his wife and marry the queen? When Amy is found dead, Elizabeth and Dudley are suddenly plunged into a struggle for survival.

User’s Reviews

Review “Jolly good fun.” — Entertainment Weekly “…expertly crafted…readers addicted to Gregory’s intelligent, well-researched tales…will be enthralled…” — Publishers Weekly “No lover of Elizabethan history should be without this novel, nor will any fan be disappointed with the meticulous research and marvelous portraits of Elizabeth, Dudley, and the court.” — Romantic Times

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ Philippa Gregory often bases her books on people who were close to a member of the monarchy but not the “main character” historically. Two examples of this are Mary Boleyn in “The Other Boleyn Girl” and Prince Arthur in “,The Constant Princess.” This novel is based on the life of Robert Dudley, the man Queen Elizabeth Tudor loved for decades. The story takes place in the very beginning of Elizabeth’s long reign. Robert, her childhood friend, is a member of her court, and serves as her Master of Horse. He truly loves Elizabeth-but he desires her throne as well. Despite having a wife, he sets out to seduce the young queen; and he gradually becomes her primary advisor. His ultimate goal is for Elizabeth to grant him a divorce-so he can become king. This novel is fascinating because the reader meets Elizabeth BEFORE she becomes the revered and fascinating icon celebrated in history. Here the reader sees her as she was in the beginning of her reign: brilliant and perceptive but young, vulnerable, and blinded by love. We also meet Robert’s deserted wife, Amy, a pretty, sweet and fragile woman caught between the desires of two charismatic figures. Ms Gregory beautifully brings out the intrigue, tension, and daily realities of court life-and offers a very interesting theory about a murder that stopped Lord Dudley’s rise to power- but still remains unsolved nearly 500 years later. Definitely one of Ms Gregory’s best.

⭐ I really enjoyed TVL. While it’s not as good as some of Gregory’s other novels (and certainly no more historically accurate…) it’s a very interesting portrait of the early days of Elizabeth’s reign and of the monumental problems faced by the country. I appreciated seeing the situation from the point of view of the common people, not just the courtiers, and it was a wonderful analysis of a woefully mismatched marriage. I like that Amy Robsart isn’t a martyr without any faults: she’s a childish, overly dependent, sometimes really annoying person who is willfully blind to her husband’s true character and ambitions, and she and Robert Dudley are completely and utterly unsuited for each other, however much they may love one another.But…This isn’t a criticism of TVL so much as all of Gregory’s books: what IS Gregory’s beef with Queen Elizabeth I?! Okay, so the real Queen wasn’t the saint popular media (both then and now) make her out to be: she was devious, grasping, petulant, bad-tempered and she also committed some atrocities that get swept under the rug. It’s good that Gregory shows her faults in this fictional portrait. But–and here’s the thing–a lot of Gregory’s other characters behave just as badly, and they are not judged nearly as harshly for it.Take Elizabeth’s relationship with Dudley, for instance. When Elizabeth has an affair with him and becomes so dependent she feels like she can’t function without him (two circumstances that I find highly unlikely, by the way), Gregory portrays her as a slutty little ditz who’s being ruled by men. But when Queen Mary Tudor becomes so dependent on her husband, who cares nothing for her, that she’s willing to finance his monumentally stupid war and has a complete breakdown when he leaves her–causing her to utterly neglect her royal duties while her country is sliding into chaos–then she’s a martyr to love and a traumatic past who deserves all our sympathy. Similarly, when Elizabeth screws around with other women’s husbands, she’s a promiscuous, unscrupulous seductress who openly rejoices over other women’s pain. But when, say, the White Princess screws around with someone else’s husband–incidentally, her own biological UNCLE–while the wife is DYING!–then she’s a blossoming young innocent caught up in the nasty machinations of others. When Elizabeth is dismissive of other women, she’s a vile traitor to her gender; when Elizabeth Woodville does the same thing, she’s just being her glamorous self. Even in the latest novel ***SPOILER***when Elizabeth lies through her teeth about how great the royal portrait is, she’s “corrupted beyond hope”–even as the heroine, Kateryn Parr, is also lying! Even Margaret Beaufort’s murder of the Princes in the Tower is somehow not as bad as Elizabeth flirting with her courtiers and taking advice from Cecil, a man who actually has her interests at heart.Gregory writes about many interesting, powerful women; none of them are saints. But, somehow, Queen Elizabeth I is the only sinner.

⭐ I did not like the ending, did he confront the queen? I needed more closure.I don’t think he loved the queen but used her because she was weak to get higher in court.I think her mother would of been a better queen than her. He mother wasn’t weak or let people tell her what to do.This book makes you think that Elizabeth is in he’ll because there is no way God would forgive her sins. She had people killed, she was a w.h.o.r.e by sleeping with a married man. She was a tease, playing men, liar and a poor excuse for a women.I found her to be weak and pathetic. She didn’t deserve to be queen. She was a doormat, she only did what men told her. Men played her.If you are born royal, she would know to marry for power or money, she would have to do this for her country.She had a women killed because she couldn’t tell a man no. What kind of queen is that, she had no backbone.

⭐ I’m more drawn to Gregory’s stories about the Tudor family, but so have haven’t tackled the red/white queen series. This one was an enjoyable read but was dismayed at the rather abrupt ending. It was a case of “what, that’s IT?” as it really seemed to finish mid-conversation. Still liked it immensely, and of course the history content behind it all is very much a grey area as well so I’m not sure what else she could have done with the story. Still, even some sort of speculative epilogue or some such might have lessened the end a little for me. I guess we can’t have it all!

⭐ I love Philippa Gregory — guilty pleasure — but this was not my favorite. Most of her books have a consistent narrative and narrator, but this one jumped quite a lot among characters, to the extent that I didn’t get a good feel for any of them. The portrayal of Elizabeth was somewhat uncharitable, which is a surprise given how charitable Gregory usually is with her characters. It think it all goes back to the narration. Still, it was well-researched, enjoyable, and hard to put down.

⭐ The Virgin’s Lover / 0-7432-6926-8I really cannot understand why Gregory books seem to be so hit-or-miss. ” The Constant Princess ” was wonderful – great history, great story. ” The Other Boleyn Girl ” was, well, it was poor history but a decent story, and that’s really all that matters. “The Virgin’s Lover” isn’t even a good story, and I really cannot understand why not.The story ostensibly centers around Amy Robsart, Robert Dudley’s wife. Amy is distressed that her husband now has a place at the palace in the new Queen Elizabeth’s court. This upsets her because, in typical Gregory fashion, the political marriage between Amy and Robert is really a romantic marriage between two lovers. We have to take Gregory’s word on this matter, though; the two ‘lovers’ are invariably nasty and cruel to each other. Robert is unforgivably distant, forgetting to send a message when he is unexpectedly absent over Christmas; Amy is petty, childish, and nagging – reveling in urging Robert to listen to prophetic dreams and stay out of battle (as if he has a choice in the matter), and gloating openly when his brother dies in the same battle. Frustratingly, Amy prays excessively for the death of Queen Elizabeth when it would be far more realistic for her to pray for the death of her callous husband. When it is made clear to the reader that Robert abandoned Amy long before Elizabeth came to the throne, then this animosity towards Elizabeth fails to endear Amy to us. Unfortunately, Gregory has managed to give us characters who are totally unsympathetic, with the end result that we do not particularly care about Amy’s abandonment (since we would abandon her, too) nor do we care about Robert’s infidelity (since his love clearly has no value).With the “main” characters thus rendered meaningless, all we have left is Elizabeth. This is where the novel’s flaws show most badly – Elizabeth has been reduced to a silly, vacillating, pleasure-seeking, childish girl who is barely capable of making the slightest decision. She throws temper tantrums in church mass, and leaves it to her advisers to pick up the pieces. In fact, she leaves ALL the affairs of state to her advisers, since the affairs of state are dreadfully dull and she is just a winsome 25 year old girl without a serious thought in her silly head. Yet on the next page, Gregory will inform us that Elizabeth’s long years of imprisonment and uncertainty seasoned and aged her and made her fit to rule – but we never see any of that seasoning in action. Turn the page again, and there is stupid, childish Elizabeth again, because the plot demands that she be so. If I didn’t know the author better, I would assume that the writer had serious issues against women, because that’s how badly Elizabeth is portrayed here – and what is worse, the characterization of her as a promiscuous idiot flies in the face of all historical fact about the woman.Which brings us to another major flaw in Gregory’s writing here – ninety-nine times out of a hundred in this book, she TELLS rather than SHOWS. A good author shows a character’s emotions, reactions, and conversations, so that the reader can intuit from these glimpses whether the character is immature or childish or wise or altruistic or any number of character traits. Instead, Gregory just tells us “Elizabeth is this,” or “Elizabeth is that,” and thus is all subtlety lost completely. Paragraphs are written in this sort of style: “Dudley handled all the coronation details, because Elizabeth did not care how the coronation was planned, only that everything be perfect. Elizabeth never cared about the how or why – she was a player on a stage and she only demanded that the other actors play their parts perfectly.” Good literature is not written this way; the same point could have come across much more memorably if Gregory had fabricated a conversation where Dudley tried to involve Elizabeth in the ceremonies and she reacted with disinterest. This would have given us some insight into Elizabeth without having to simply memorize what Gregory tells us about her.I really cannot recommend this book. Obviously, it has struck a tone with some readers and perhaps you will enjoy it, but I would recommend looking for it at the library before buying a copy. I felt that the history was bad, the writing was dull, the characters were irritating and uninteresting, and the story was lacking any kind of drama or interest.~ Ana Mardoll

⭐ Philippa Gregory captures the heart of her characters and brings feminine history to life. She provides factual context and the woman’s point of view. I was completely engaged and shook my head on more than one occasion to see that history has not changed much in over 400 years. She could be writing about women today in light of the lock her up and burn her chants in the news in the last few years. I learn a lot about politics and intrigue reading her work. I particularly appreciate how these historical people are brought to a whole life. We are there with their fears, their pride, their joy, and disappointment. It is indeed a tough world.

⭐ Elizabeth the First was amazing in dodging the slings and arrows of treacherous politics in the 16 century. Trapped in a female body, shaped by the twists of fate that brought her to the throne, she was manipulative and knew how to use her minions to the best advantage. However clever she was to insulate herself from the “press” of her day, she did have a human side and that female was head over heels in love with a married man. Perhaps, that was in a perverse way the attraction- wanting the impossible- for I think Elizabeth loved the throne of England more than anything else in the world. Gregory’s tale bring one more theory into the death of Dudley’s wife, one of those unanswered mysteries that have left more questions than answers over the years. Humanizing the other woman- we see the triangle, the possible political fallout and the alleged conspiracy to prevent Dudley access to the throne. Do I believe in the scullduggery- yes. Could it have happened the way Gregory supposes. I could see it. Power hung in the balance, the throne a heartbeat from Elizabeth’s lover- one mere woman’s life becomes a footnote to the power behind the throne.

⭐ I have fallen in love with Phillipa Gregory’s books ~~ “The Queen’s Fool” and “The Other Boleyn Girl” ~~ so it was with anticipation that I settled down for this book and found out that it wasn’t nearly as good as the other two in the series. I was highly disappointed. I love her writing style, and that hasn’t changed at all. Maybe I am just disappointed in the way she portrayed Elizabeth, Dudley and Dudley’s wife. It was just a big soap opera (which it was) and this time, none of the characters were full developed like in previous books.Elizabeth is portrayed as a wishy washy woman controlled by Dudley and Cecil, her trusted advisor. Amy Dudley, a woman who is definitely wronged by her husband for sure, is such a boring character ~~ all she ever did was weep as she went from house to house. She never showed any spunk or spine in fighting for her man. What started out to be a woman to feel sorry for ended up a woman you just wish would go away (basically, that’s how every other character felt in this novel!). Elizabeth is a big disappointment ~~ in “The Queen’s Fool” she was a flirtative woman, but strong. Now? She is portrayed as a woman who doesn’t know what she wants.Dudley and Cecil are the only characters in this book that are worthy of mention ~~ two ambitious men ~~ one for himself and the other for his country. Their clashes and their thoughts are typical of men in power. The conflict between the two of them made this book a lot more bearable.I would not dismiss this book as easily as I write this review. It’s very compelling to read. It is well-written. It’s a fast read. It’s just not Gregory’s best book by far. I would read it to continue on with the Tudor series. Hopefully, the next one “The Boleyn Inheritance” is much better.4-10-07

⭐ Philippa Gregory has written three books about the origins and history of Queen Elizabeth. The first, The Other Boleyn Girl, was one of the best historical novels I’ve ever read. Starting from the story of the sister of Ann Boleyn, that book told the much told story of Henry VIII from a fresh perspective. In the process it also portrayed a piece of social history rarely revealed – the living conditions and politics of being a lady-in-waiting. As much history as I’ve read (I have an MA in history), this is the first time I’ve been exposed to that in the depth shown in the book.The second book, The Queens Fool, tells the story of the period between the death of Henry and the reign of Elizabeth. Hannah, the Queens Fool, a secret jew driven from Spain by the inquisition, is the main character. The social history of the English jews who escaped the inquisition is well-portrayed, and again this is an aspect of history I knew little about – this book actually sent me scurrying to read more about it – and Gregory was quite accurate in her portrayal. The weakness of this book is that the larger story actually involves several significant historical incidents and is not as coherent.This last book, The Virgin’s Lover, tells its story from the perspective of Amy Robsart, the wife of Robert Dudley. From the first page I was cringing because I know too much of this story already. Unfortunately, the portrayal of Amy is extremely inaccurate, as is the portrayal of Elizabeth. And, I already knew way too well what ultimately happened to Amy, which is also inaccurately portrayed. Unlike the other two books, this one does not also have a secondary story with the details of any interesting social history. Instead, the plot just moves along and the story focuses on the too well-known characters. On the whole it just didn’t work for me, but after about 150 pages or so I did get caught up enough to start reading it.A fundamental problem in writing historical fiction is writing style and use of language. Anything a character says is likely to be awkward. If the language used is archaic, then the reader feels unfamiliar with it, and it probably isn’t the way the character talked. If the language used is modern, it can be grating. Gregory tends to use a combination of both. Sometimes the language is constructed in a way that is archaic, other times, it is highly modern and colloquial. Sometimes her characters have bizarely anachronistic thoughts. A character will analyze the behavior of another in what can only be modern terms, or a character like Cecil is thought of by Dudley as a kind of hero because he has a vision of a unified England (this is absurd as Dudley is attributing a nationalism to Cecil that didn’t exist until centuries later, Cecil might have had a vision like that, but Dudley would never in 200 years have articulated it that way). There is also enough 20th century slang in the dialog for it to feel stilted. I think historical fiction writers really ought to try to write very standard, non slangy, but not forcibly archaic language. Otherwise the language gets in the way. Unfortunately, this language problem plagues all of Gregory’s books.Problems aside, Gregory is one of the best living writers of historical fiction. She knows history and uses it well (I don’t necessarily fault her for departing from historian’s opinions or even from the evidence). She does write characters well, and constructs a story skilfully. I did enjoy reading the Virgin’s Lover despite its faults. If you enjoy Gregory’s other books, you’ll probably enjoy this one. However, don’t expect it to be as good as the others.

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