The Queen's Vow: A Novel Of Isabella Of Castile

This book is told in the first person by Isabella. I liked this as it helped to give Isabella a stronger voice, not that she needed any help with that. Isabella is a strong, independent, smart woman. She could come off as cold at times because of her aloofness and the fact that she did not get easily rattled but she was just processing everything before she did anything. Which I can relate to. I am a thinker. I don’t react instantly but that does not mean I don’t care. I am picturing the whole situation from start to end and a few steps beyond. So back to Isabella. Anyways what interested me the most is all of the traits I just mentioned about Isabella are things that other readers did not like about her. Sometimes I would agree with the other readers that the aloofness is a turn off but in this story and for who Isabella was it worked for her. Again however as much as I like the fact that Mr. Gortner can bring life to any era that he writes about, it comes down to the details. There are just too many for me. Which translates to slow reading and makes me think that sometimes the book should end a lot sooner than it did. Overall though I did like this book and learning more about the Spanish royal court.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I have wanted to read this for awhile. It is too bad that the author spoon feeds the reader with too much info. I much prefer to be trusted to have an imagination. I think that there is a delicate balance between setting scenes for a reader and describing scenes. Thank you for your review.
-Dilettantish Reader
August 14, 2013 at 7:16 PM
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