Victoria: A Novel of a Young Queen

by Daisy Goodwin

You've seen her on the screen, now read her story...

From the creator of the ITV Sunday night drama, VICTORIA, now in its second year, comes the novel by Daisy Goodwin, author of the bestselling MY LAST DUCHESS and THE FORTUNE HUNTER.

In June 1837, the eighteen-year-old Victoria wakes up to find that she is Queen of the most powerful nation in the world. Can this tiny girl prevail against the men who believe that women are too hysterical to rule? And what are the secrets behind her famously passionate relationship with her husband, Albert?

From one of our greatest historical writers comes a new take on one of our most beloved monarchs... Victoria as you've never seen her before.

• ISBN10: 1250045460
• ISBN13: 9781250045461
• Publish Date: 22 November 2016 (first published 20 October 2016)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.Outside of Emily Blunt's performance of Queen Victoria she is a monarch I know very little about.  Daisy Goodwin has created a tapestry in sharing this young Victoria's early reign. At first, her ascent to the throne read like something out of a Tudor novel with constant conniving and scheming to reach the top and win the prize of whispering into Victoria's ear.

Victoria's mother and uncle Leopold got under my skin with their whining and deceiving ways. I wanted to send them to the high tower for their constant attempts at interference. Although, this is what made them a good antagonist.

Lord Melbourne was an interesting character, I felt safe when he was on the page, he was a kind soul who truly had Victoria's best interests at heart and can see why she was crushing on him. However, he was almost old enough to be her grandfather, and he was certainly no Sean Connery! while a first crush is always a bit crushing, I was glad to see her move on to someone her own age, even if it was her cousin.

I was happy that the entire book did not revolve around Albert and Victoria's courtship as that would have been tedious. It is the little nuances of a person that make a first date memorable and I feel that is what Daisy Goodwin accomplished in telling Queen Victoria's and in turn Albert's story.

As a whole, Victoria was beautifully constructed and while the focus of everyone else was Victoria's love life I liked being able to see beyond that and view the unique person Queen Victoria was.

This review was originally posted on First Impressions Reviews

[Lianne]

I was approved an ARC of this book by the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This review in its entirety was originally posted at eclectictales.com: http://www.eclectictales.com/blog/2016/11/23/review-victoria/

Once I started reading this book, I just could not put it down, I pretty much ended up reading almost the entire book in one evening. I was absolutely enthralled and invested in Victoria’s early days coming into her inheritance as Queen, asserting her independence, and learning how to navigate through politics, the Court, the matter of her gender. She’s young, she can be impulsive, but she also wants to be the best she can be. She is a ruler, and a young one at that, in a world dominated by men so the bits with all of the powerful men of the country sort of eyeing her every move and concocting ways to tone down her power, assert a regent, etc. was interesting but also pretty wary-making. It was also interesting to see her make up for lost time so to speak after being under the dominating control of Sir John Conroy and her mother the Duchess of Kent, from bounding up and down the stairs to standing up for herself and trying to distance herself from them in some respects. It’s heartbreaking in a sense, but at the same time I really felt for Victoria and her sense of loneliness and detachnment from her mother as she was growing up. It was cute and pretty cool how she looked up to Elizabeth Tudor as a role model.

I was however quite surprised at how much of this novel focused on her relationship with Lord Melbourne. I knew there were some gossip about the two of them because she relied on him so much as Private Secretary during her early days as monarch but I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the extrapolation of their relationship here. Meanwhile I wish her budding romance with Albert leading up to the final scene had more scenes/focus, but it’s okay, I thought Albert was precious despite his seriousness and totally opposite personality to Victoria