2024 Book 1: The Queen's Fool

It has been a slow year for me on the book front. Once again my aim is to end up finishing the year having read at least 12 books. I started reading David Copperfield at the beginning of the year, but have found that hard going. On that basis I'll dip in and out of it.

I had an itch for reading an actual factual book instead of relying on the Kindle. Youngest and I dusted off our library cards and went for a search.

After enjoying Andrew Taylor's Ashes of London series last year, I was in the mood for more historical fiction. Phillipa Gregory's The Queen's Fool seemed to jump out at me, so without much thought that's what I went for. I'm so pleased I did!

As the case with the Ashes of London series, the main and other key characters are fictional, but others, and the events surrounding them are not. In this case the story is set in 1553 at the time of King Edwards death, and follows the story of Hannah who becomes ... well the Queen's Fool (Queen Mary).

Hannah and her father are Spanish Jews who fled Spain due to their religion, to settle in London.

This was another book that once I picked it up, I struggled to put it down. It's a series I'll continue to run through ... although possibly not in order as that's a bit tricky when getting the books from the Library.