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Review
'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
Product Description
‘Entrancing, compelling, and beautifully written…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. The queen draws near to the end of her life, with no heir to follow, and 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 written and evocative novel, 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 the gardens she documents, a lovely and seductive backdrop to the novel.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Sarah Gristwood is following a popular tradition of historians turning to writing fiction and this, her first novel, is a great success. Her previous biographies are both about the Elizabethan era, Arbella: England's Lost Queen and Elizabeth & Leicester and her historical novel is set in the same period.
Jeanne is only five years old when she leaves the Low Countries, fleeing religious persecution. Her mother entrusts her to a man called Jacob and, when she is murdered, he is unwillingly left to bring her up. On the way to England he tries, unsuccessfully, to ask others to look after her - despairing at how he can care for a five year old girl. When nobody is willing to take her though, he keeps her and brings her to London with him. Jacob is a man who knows plants and gardens - they are his lifes work and he teaches Jeanne everything he knows, dressing her as a boy and simply finding a young apprentice easier to deal with in his mind than a young woman.
When Jacob dies, Jeanne keeps the disguise and manages to find work with Lord Robert Cecil. It is nearing the end of Elizabeth I's reign and the monarch is under pressure to name her successor. When the Queens favourite, the ambitious Earl of Essex (Robert Dudley's stepson), falls out with the Queen, Jeanne (or Jan as she is known) is drawn into the web surrounding him. She is attracted to him, but also feels loyalty to Lord Cecil. Then she meets an old friend, the actor Martin Slaughter. All three men either guess or know her secret, but life is difficult for a woman alone and Jeanne is desperate to keep her post in Lord Cecil's household. Both Jeanne and Martin are drawn into the plots surrounding Essex and, as his many intrigues threaten to bring about his downfall, Jeanne has to keep her disguise, loyalties and, ultimately, her life intact if she can.
This novel is told from the points of view of Jeanne, Cecil and Katherine, Lady Howard, who is close to the Queen. Jeanne is a good character, who is an intelligent woman, attempting to do her best with the life she has. Her family are dead, her mentor also dies, and she has no woman in her life to help her learn to live other than as a young man. I sympathised with her plight and enjoyed this historical novel very much. Essex was a flamboyant character, who went too far, and the book follows his misadventures and the spectre of Cecil, always in the background, with excellent detail and atmosphere. Sarah Gristwood knows the period she is writing about and she brings her knowledge to this novel and makes it an interesting and exciting read.
Jeanne is only five years old when she leaves the Low Countries, fleeing religious persecution. Her mother entrusts her to a man called Jacob and, when she is murdered, he is unwillingly left to bring her up. On the way to England he tries, unsuccessfully, to ask others to look after her - despairing at how he can care for a five year old girl. When nobody is willing to take her though, he keeps her and brings her to London with him. Jacob is a man who knows plants and gardens - they are his lifes work and he teaches Jeanne everything he knows, dressing her as a boy and simply finding a young apprentice easier to deal with in his mind than a young woman.
When Jacob dies, Jeanne keeps the disguise and manages to find work with Lord Robert Cecil. It is nearing the end of Elizabeth I's reign and the monarch is under pressure to name her successor. When the Queens favourite, the ambitious Earl of Essex (Robert Dudley's stepson), falls out with the Queen, Jeanne (or Jan as she is known) is drawn into the web surrounding him. She is attracted to him, but also feels loyalty to Lord Cecil. Then she meets an old friend, the actor Martin Slaughter. All three men either guess or know her secret, but life is difficult for a woman alone and Jeanne is desperate to keep her post in Lord Cecil's household. Both Jeanne and Martin are drawn into the plots surrounding Essex and, as his many intrigues threaten to bring about his downfall, Jeanne has to keep her disguise, loyalties and, ultimately, her life intact if she can.
This novel is told from the points of view of Jeanne, Cecil and Katherine, Lady Howard, who is close to the Queen. Jeanne is a good character, who is an intelligent woman, attempting to do her best with the life she has. Her family are dead, her mentor also dies, and she has no woman in her life to help her learn to live other than as a young man. I sympathised with her plight and enjoyed this historical novel very much. Essex was a flamboyant character, who went too far, and the book follows his misadventures and the spectre of Cecil, always in the background, with excellent detail and atmosphere. Sarah Gristwood knows the period she is writing about and she brings her knowledge to this novel and makes it an interesting and exciting read.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If, like me, you've read a lot of historical novels over the years, then the device used in this one will be very familiar: you invent a fictional character, preferably some sort of outsider (but with connections), and drop them into the past among actual historical characters just as something important is brewing. History dictates the big events, but the further back you go the fewer the known facts, so you can do what you like with the story and characters (real as well as fictional), which is what makes it it interesting.
Here we are with the Tudors yet again: I wonder if anyone will ever dare to start the ball rolling with a novel about Queen Anne, for instance, just for a change? Anyway, this time it's the dying days of Elizabeth's reign and Essex's rebellion.
Some people have given this book five stars, but I'm afraid I found the story very dull, and hampered by her decision to go down the first person narrative route. All three narrators - the fictional Jeanne, a Dutch Protestant refugee working for Robert Cecil, Cecil himself, and Katherine, Lady Howard, the Queen's First Lady of the Bedchamber - enjoy giving us page after page of lengthy opinions, thoughts and descriptions, all monologue and very little dialogue. Unless the characters are interesting (and these aren't, particularly) then this makes for a very stodgy read, and by the end I was longing to see and hear things for myself, first hand. At times this felt like ploughing through a rambling and repetitive journal or letter.
And surely the idea that a girl could get away with pretending to be a boy for so long in a large Tudor household, where privacy was unknown, was ludicrous? That pretty much jinxed the whole thing for me right from the start.
There's almost a bit of drama at the end, with some tale about a ring, but it was too late. The whole thing just never came alive for me, I didn't care about any of these people, so what was the point? If a work of fiction, however historically accurate, is as half-hearted as this, then I'd rather read a history book.
This is obviously a work with literary pretensions, but I'm sorry to say that I'd prefer Philippa Gregory's Tudor efforts to this, at least they're entertaining. It's proof, once again, that being a good non-fiction writer doesn't necessarily mean that you can do decent fiction.
Here we are with the Tudors yet again: I wonder if anyone will ever dare to start the ball rolling with a novel about Queen Anne, for instance, just for a change? Anyway, this time it's the dying days of Elizabeth's reign and Essex's rebellion.
Some people have given this book five stars, but I'm afraid I found the story very dull, and hampered by her decision to go down the first person narrative route. All three narrators - the fictional Jeanne, a Dutch Protestant refugee working for Robert Cecil, Cecil himself, and Katherine, Lady Howard, the Queen's First Lady of the Bedchamber - enjoy giving us page after page of lengthy opinions, thoughts and descriptions, all monologue and very little dialogue. Unless the characters are interesting (and these aren't, particularly) then this makes for a very stodgy read, and by the end I was longing to see and hear things for myself, first hand. At times this felt like ploughing through a rambling and repetitive journal or letter.
And surely the idea that a girl could get away with pretending to be a boy for so long in a large Tudor household, where privacy was unknown, was ludicrous? That pretty much jinxed the whole thing for me right from the start.
There's almost a bit of drama at the end, with some tale about a ring, but it was too late. The whole thing just never came alive for me, I didn't care about any of these people, so what was the point? If a work of fiction, however historically accurate, is as half-hearted as this, then I'd rather read a history book.
This is obviously a work with literary pretensions, but I'm sorry to say that I'd prefer Philippa Gregory's Tudor efforts to this, at least they're entertaining. It's proof, once again, that being a good non-fiction writer doesn't necessarily mean that you can do decent fiction.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an immensely tedious book, and the main character is infuriatingly passive. I'm in no doubt that the author knows her history, but unfortunately she knows nothing about constructing an entertaining narrative or portraying appealing characters. I'm only giving it two stars as it does contain some nice, vivid descriptions of various gardens.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Mystery and history
Other reviewers have gone into detail about the story told in The Girl in the Mirror, but I want to add a little something... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Ultimate Book Guides
A compelling first novel
This is definitely the most skilfully crafted and enjoyable historical novel that I have ever read.
Sarah Gristwood uses her extensive knowledge as an historian of the... Read more
Sarah Gristwood uses her extensive knowledge as an historian of the... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Amanda Jones
A stunning fictional debut
I was entranced by this book and enjoyed it enormously. I don't give jacket quotes often or lightly, but this is not only riveting but haunting - and it stayed with me. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Alison Weir
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