The Girl in the Mirror

Description

'Entrancing, compelling, and beautifully written...a fabulous novel, bursting with integrity and authenticity, vividly eboking the court of Elizabeth I...I feel I know the characters and was mesmerised by their story. This is the historical novel as literary fiction - and damned good literary fiction at that.' Alison Weir Jeanne, a young French exile orphaned by the wars of religion on the continent, is brought to London as a young girl disguised as a boy. Growing up, the disguise has not been shed and she finds a living as a clerk, ending up in the household of Robert Cecil. As she witnesses the intrigues and plots swirling round the court of Elizabeth I in the last days of Gloriana's reign, she finds herself sucked into the orbit of the dashing and ambitious young favourite, the Earl of Essex. As the queen draws near to the end of her life, with no heir to follow, the stakes are high. As Essex hurtles towards self-destruction, Jeanne finds her loyalties, her disguise and her emotions under threat - in a political climate where the least mistake can attract dire penalties. This is a beautifully layered and textured book, rich with the details of life and politics of Elizabeth I's court. Jeanne's struggle for survival and love is interwoven with her passionate pull towards nature, a lovely and seductive backdrop to the novel.

Sarah Gristwood is a best-selling biographer, former film journalist, and commentator on royal affairs. She has appeared in most of the UK's leading newspapers and magazines. She wrote two bestselling Tudor biographies, Arbella: England's Lost Queen and Elizabeth and Leicester; and the eighteenth-century story Perdita: Royal Mistress, Writer, Romantic which was selected as Radio 4 Book of the Week. A regular media commentator on royal and historical affairs, Sarah was one of the team providing Radio 4's live coverage of the royal wedding. She is a Fellow of the RSA, and an Honorary Patron of Historic Royal Palaces. She is the author of The Story of Beatrix Potter and Game of Queens: The Women Who Made the 16th Century.

'Entrancing, compelling, and beautifully written. The Girl in the Mirror is a fabulous novel, bursting with integrity and authenticity, vividly evoking the court of Elizabeth I, with wonderful period detail. I feel I know the characters, and was mesmerised by their story. This is the historical novel as literary fiction - and damned good literary fiction at that.' Alison Weir, Sunday Times Top Ten bestselling author of The Captive Queen Praise for 'Elizabeth and Leicester' 'This has to be the last word on that much-discussed (then and now) relationship between the Virgin Queen and her favourite, Robert Dudley...It's gripping' Guardian