"The Queen's Fool"

Such an awesome story!  Phillipa Gregory never disappoints me!  She writes like she was there and in return I get sucked in like I am there when I read.  It's easy to loose yourself in the pages and connect with the characters.  I have to say, I did get a little irritated with Hannah, the main and title character.  Hannah is hired as Queen Mary's fool after King Edward dies.  Hannah is a young girl of 14 when the story begins.  I never really realized how chaotic England's history was, and feel like I have just touched the surface.  I am anxious to learn more.

Hannah is Jewish at a time when you could not be Jewish and live the Jewish ways.  She is  betrothed to a young Jewish man, named Daniel, who is studying to be a doctor.  She is to marry him when she turns 16 and is allowed to work at the Queen's court until then.  As her time at court continues she finds one reason or another to hold off her wedding.  Hannah is a bright and steadfast companion to the Queen who does not want to let her go, and Hannah also find herselfs intertwined in the many plots that surround the Queen and her sister Elizabeth.  Hannah finally flees England when her life it as risk for heresey to go and be with her betrothed.  Her life with Daniel ends up dysfunctional and she is once again on her own.  Hannah has the gift of "foresight" where she can see the future.  It comes at unpredictable times.  Instead of being cast as a witch, she is said to be a "holy" fool since in a vision she once saw and Angel.   She feels blessed and cursed with her sight as she knows it can be used against her at any time.

It struck me again reading this book how people didn't live very long back then. Hannah is to be married when she is 16 and the Queen is considered old at 37.  This book ended in the year 1558 and it made me recall the birth of our own country. Why it was that some English people wanted to leave England to start their own country free of being ruled by the crazy King's and Queen's and longed for a place where people could be free.  The back and forth every time a new ruler came to the throne gave everyone whiplash with different laws, different religions, and threats of being burned alive on the street corner if you said the wrong thing.  Nobody trusted anyone as no one could be trusted.  Gives me goosebumps!

My next book will be "Same Kind of Different as Me" which is my next official bookclub book for March.