The Queen's Fool by Philippa Gregory

I read The Other Boleyn Girl a couple of years ago, and it really sold me on historical fiction. I loved the stories mingled in with the history so I decided I would try out another one of Gregory's books. The Queen's Fool follows a girl named Hannah who is begged to be the king's fool (jester/advisor) because she has the gift of sight where she sees things in the future. The king quickly dies and Hannah is passed around between Queen Mary (bloody Mary) and Princess Elizabeth as their friend/servant/advisor. The book follows through Mary's reign including Elizabeth's imprisonment, Mary's torture and burning of heretics, and Mary's eventual death.

The book was written well, and you really felt engrossed in the historical story. The biggest problem that I had with the book was that the history itself just wasn't that interesting to me. I knew the story of bloody Mary and kind of predicted everything in the book because of it. Unlike Cleopatra's Daughter or The Other Boleyn Girl, I knew too much about this story for it to be that interesting. On top of that, I didn't find Hannah that intriguing of a main character, quite boring actually. I would recommend this book for someone that likes historical fiction, but it definitely wasn't my favorite. 3 stars