Picked up a copy at ALA and finished it by mid-train ride home. Terrific historical fiction about something I knew extremely little-Queen Victoria as a teenager before she ascends to the throne. As usual, I found the afterward fascinating-explaining what was real and what was not.
Elizabeth is a young lady who adores her mother and father ( a successful merchant who has entered the gentry) and is looking forward to her first London Season. Unfortunately her parents are killed and in a matter of hours she is orphaned, left with no entry into society, and left with a pile of debt. What to do? She accepts a position as a lady’s maid to the Princess Victoria in Kensington Palace. Now known as Liza she is part of the servants world she once gave no thought to at all. She is not a complainer, though, because she knows that without this position she’d be on the streets. Besides, she believes that befriending the princess (who is decidedly peculiar and treated like a toddler by her mother) will eventually help her out. Continue reading
