A review by firerosearien
Game of Queens: The Women Who Made Sixteenth-Century Europe by Sarah Gristwood

4.0

Reads more like a novel than a history book, but while the topic explored is quite fascinating, the coverage of all the women in the book is extremely uneven. For example, while the pages spent on Elizabeth I, Margaret of Austria, and Catherine de Medici are well justified, those spent on Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn are perhaps a little too much when put into perspective. I was interested in reading more about Mary of Hungary and Margaret of Parma, but they had very few of the pages devoted to them.

Still, this project was a mammoth undertaking, even more challenging since it is meant as popular history for the lay reader, and I admire Ms. Gristwood for taking on the challenge.