You have to be glad that Victoria didn’t live long enough to see what the 19teens brought, though I doubt she would have been surprised by much of it. This was an interesting look at European history and I learned quite a bit. A few points ran a little long, but great insight into the world Victoria created.

This book provides an interesting and in depth look into the lives of Queen's Victoria's children and grandchildren. The royal marriage made by her descendants shaped Europe and this book provides a detailed look into the origins.

Well-written and deeply interesting deep dive into Europe at the turn of the century. A bit slow, but I learned a lot about VR's reach.

I went into this book expecting more than what it was - I was expecting more of the family life and relationships between Victoria and her family. Instead it was more of a European history with the marriages as a backdrop. While a good book, it didn't really uncover anything new for me. Born to Rule: Five Reigning Consorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria covered much of the same ground.

This is actually less of a look at Queen Victoria's machinations and more of a group biography of who the grandchildren married. As such, it's perfectly fine but doesn't offer any/many new insights. If you're new to Queen Victoria's extended family and dynastic manoeverings, this would probably make a good introduction, but if you already have an interested in this, you're probably not going to get anything new here as the focus is very much on the Prussian/Russian connections, which have already been extensively written about (and which Victoria was actively discouraging and in some cases happened without her consent for all that they did shape Europe), with frustratingly little on the more minor royal marriages. Disappointing.

"This was a match which promised every hope of happiness."

In The Dinosaur Hunters: A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric World (US release: The Terrible Lizard: The First Dinosaur Hunters and the Birth of a New Science) Ms Cadbury took this reader on a wondrous journey into the 19th century to experience the dawning of incredible discoveries, distinct examples of eccentricities of genius minds and even a New Year's Eve society dinner in the belly of an Iguanodon. That was quite a book I can assure you that has become a treasured reference on my shelves and introduced me to this author's supreme talent with narrative writing that paints a scene and uses the collected quotes of the past to make history come alive in the reader's mind. Well, she has done it again and no shame will be placed on the reader if you open Queen Victoria's Matchmaking: The Royal Marriages that Shaped Europe with only the vaguest memory of names from childhood lessons (that we as adults sorely sometimes wish we paid closer attention to or had different teachers at that crucial time of curiosity). Let Ms Cadbury be your guide as she takes you back to swirling balls, carriage rides into the rocky inclines and slippery slopes of matchmaking of Queen Victoria's extended family and learn a new connection of royalty or form your own opinion what led to the thunders of wars, revolt and fall of royal houses and empires.

For this reader who admits to still catching up with the historic topics she missed in her younger days, Queen Victoria's Matchmaking: The Royal Marriages that Shaped Europe was a work I needed to complete my own history re-education. I may have started with historical fiction to form a simple picture of a figure of the past but with each non-fiction work, I can mentally add those same names to a growing list of understanding and recognition when I read their own preserved words and this only makes me want to continue onto other types of fiction and biographies. That's the final joy of reading such a comprehensive title and this book certainly provided that for me. I wish though there would have been some type of family tree added but then again that went oddly in my favor as I enjoyed exploring on my own and slowly piecing those remaining mysteries of connections together. In regards to everything presented, I did find a couple slow spots and (forgive me) I was more interested in getting to other sections or matches than others but patience was the key to unlocking my ultimate reward which came only a few weeks ago when I found the small screen movie The Lost Prince (an excellent poignant film I recommend to all interested in this era) and I knew every name, what role they played or what was to befall them in the first and last hours of WWI and how the grandmother of Europe helped to shape those displayed marriages and her ultimate lost efforts on peace.

With thanks to NetGalley and Perseus Books, PublicAffairs who kindly sent me an Advanced Reader Copy.

Finally, Sophie read Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking by Deborah Cadbury. Sophie has been a fan of Cadbury since she picked up The Dinosaur Hunters many years ago and has slowly been working her way through her books ever since.

Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking is an intricately detailed look at the way the Queen attempted to shape history by strategically positioning her grandchildren into the royal courts of Europe. With over 30 in total this was a grand strategy indeed, one she and Prince Albert hoped would strengthen Britain’s global power and lead to peace. As we all know, this didn’t turn out how they hoped, and the book follows events across the continent as revolutions begin and the world edged ever nearer to the Great War.

Cadbury’s excellence as a history writer comes from her ability to make the stories she is telling personal. Instead of feeling that you are reading about a remote figure who lived and died decades ago, the intimacy of the stories envelops you in its twists and turns and you begin to feel a real connection with the people she writes about. She truly makes history come to life. Many of the conventions here seem alien to us now, first cousins marrying and young princes discussing their “pretty” 12-year-old cousins with an eye to marriage that seems distasteful to us today, but we are asked to but our modern opinions aside and remember that the protocols these individuals lived by was wildly different to our experiences of dating.

Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking was by far the slowest and hardest of all the Deborah Cadbury books Sophie has read so far, partly because there are simply so many characters needing to be introduced, but once the players are all on the board it became thoroughly entertaining. A must-read for fans of history, monarchy, and those who love a good, intricate romance.

Victoria & Albert had a plan. It was to extend the ideas of liberalism & constitutional monarchy through a network of marriages of their children, and later, grandchildren. After Albert's early death, it was something Victoria pursued the rest of her life.

This book covers her efforts, their successes and failures. It's full of plotting and personality and rich with detail. Sometimes the matches hoped for by "Grandmama Queen" happened, but often they did not. And certainly the personalities of some of her grandchildren, especially Alexandra of Russia and Wilhelm of Germany went a long way towards bringing about the tragedy of WWI.

Even so it's an intriguing way to look at this period of history. Even though her policy didn't work and was overtaken by movements and events, this book is very enlightening.

I cannot adequately express how much I enjoyed reading this book. I was fully prepared for a stuffy read through Queen Victoria and her matchmaking, but instead was surprised by fun and easy to read this was. It chronicled Queen Victoria's matchmaking and meddling for her children and grandchildren - and be warned, she had many. Her influence was clear, and it was very interesting to see how her influence continued and continues to this day on several royal houses. Love, love, love and highly recommend.

After reading Queen Victoria's Matchmaking, I"m completely convinced the reason World War 1 didn't break out sooner was that Queen Victoria's role as Grandma of half of Europe was making the world play nice. Victoria was not only a strong leader that increased her own empire, but she also managed to partner her children and other relatives with those who would help expand the house of Saxe-Coburg. Say what you will about Queen Victoria, this book shows she definitely had an idea of the impact.

If you are interested in Queen Victoria and her children or the history of the royal families of Europe in Queen Victoria's Matchmaking: The Royal Marriages that Shaped Europe you will find an interesting and well-researched read.
I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

From their birth, the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of Queen Victoria had a role to play as the countries approached the new century.

I'd never realized just how many descendants of the queen became the ruler of a country. Though several either married for love or came to love their life companion after marriage, I couldn't help but pity them all. On every side, their family and friends, well-meaning though they were, manipulated the young people for their own benefit.

Knowing of the family relationships that connected the leaders of the countries, makes the first world war that much more heartbreaking as each one had to take sides in a ruthless and merciless situation. Family bonds were shattered.

I found the narrative to be fascinating and informative on a subject I knew very little. For readers who have an interest in the family of Queen Victoria or the history of the late 19th century will enjoy this book.

2.5 stars
Queen Victoria's Matchmaking is supposed to describe the attempts of Queen Victoria to find partners for her grandchildren in order to ensure their happiness and/or fix them up in a way that augments their stability and power. What it actually chronicles is the relationships between the future crowned
heads of Europe and Queen Victoria's grandchildren, with Victoria being mentioned regularly but having little actual influence over their choices. The majority of relationships talked about in this book, including Marie and Ferdinand of Romania, Ena and Alfonso of Spain, and Eddy and Helene, had little to do with Queen Victoria except tangentially as a doting grandmother. The actual matches she did make, such as Victoria Melita and Ernest of Hesse, were barely mentioned except in he space of a few pages chronicling them getting together, unlike other relationships that got analysed till death of the participants. The relationships that got explored after the marriage, like Emperor Nicholas and Alexandra, had nothing to do with Queen Victoria. For some of them, she wasn't even alive from the get go (Ena and Alfonso). The book is an obvious example of marketing that doesn't match the interior. This book was more about the relationships that the grandchildren had rather than about the setting up of them by Queen Victoria and how that affected their marriage. The book also tried to delve into some heavy politics on its many tangents, particularly as done by the Kaiser, which also doesn't fit in the scope of this book and felt like a case of trying to seem ultra-important, which it didn't need to do. It would have been fine as a book that simply focused on the personal romantic relationships of her grandchildren without needing to dive into the muddy, irrelevant waters of pre-World War I politics in order to make it important. The main instance of this was the chapter titled "Ena and Alfonso," which didn't even mention either of them until 2/3 of the way through the chapter and missed mentioning on the other granddaughters of Queen Victoria that caught his eye. Nothing was wrong with the research, premise, or writing of this book, the book's problems were all caused by the author's not knowing what type of book to write or what to focus on.
A digital copy of this book was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Exploring the role of dynastic marriage as a route to maintaining the pax Britannia in Europe, this is interesting reading in the wake of Brexit of which Queen Victoria, with her vision of a federalist Europe, would have strongly disapproved. Admittedly, both Victoria and Albert foresaw independent European countries as mini Britains, conservative sites of anti-republicanism, united via an interconnected matrix of royalist marriage alliances - so an overwhelmingly conservative project. All the same, the aim of allying national and economic interests for the sake of peace and prosperity across Europe eerily forecasts the EU agenda.

Cadbury has a good eye for a story and weaves what is a complicated narrative of planned and achieved courtships and marriage with flair - an interesting read about where the personal and the political intersected in Europe during the reign of Victoria.

Further reading for Victorian fans already familiar with the history. The author knowledgeably fills in details of the interactive European dynasties affected by this family.

Queen Victoria attempted to continue her husband's vision of a united Europe by marrying her grandchildren into the royal families of other countries. Reactionary forces and xenophobia would contribute to the outbreak of World War I, bringing those grandchildren into danger, exile, and execution. A fresh look at the latter half of the nineteenth century and the place of royal courtship and marriage in the political world.

Prince Albert and Queen Victoria saw dynastic marriages between their children and European royalty as a safeguard against war, and as a way of creating a balance of power, in Europe, as well as spreading British values across the continent. With Prince Albert’s death, Queen Victoria was determined to make his vision come true and, with forty two grandchildren, the ‘cousinhood’ formed a unique club at the very top of European society. This book looks at Queen Victoria’s desire to be involved in matchmaking marriages for her grandchildren and looks, in greater depth, at seven of her grandchildren who were elevated to the throne at a crucial time in Europe’s history. These include Kaiser Wilhelm (her oldest, and most troublesome, grandson), Sophie, Queen of Greece, George V, Princess Maud, Queen of Norway, Alix, Empress of Russia, Marie ‘Missy’ Queen of Romania and Victoria Eugenie or ‘Ena’, Queen of Spain.

There is no doubt that Queen Victoria felt that, through her grandchildren, she could shape the political landscape of Europe. Although much of this book was familiar to me, such as Victoria’s desperate attempts to stop the marriage of Nicholas and Alexandra, Deborah Cadbury does include many snippets from personal letters from Queen Victoria and these make fascinating reading – especially her long correspondence with her eldest daughter, and mother of the Kaiser, Vicky. She does sometimes quote from other research , or authors, and I was not impressed by her taking one small piece of information from Patricia Cornwall; whose odd ranting about Jack the Ripper leads to any research she comes across being biased to concur with her bizarre theories and so is suspect in my eyes... That aside, the majority of the research comes from sources which are obviously directly from Victoria herself and makes the book, which could be all too familiar, come alive.

Queen Victoria comes across as a figure who is feared, and respected, in her family; the central character in a spider web which spreads across Europe. Her letters are manipulative, she is often insensitive and she is extremely demanding. Nor is she always successful in her attempts and some of the most interesting parts of this book deal with her failed attempts to create a marriage; such as her wishes to marry Prince Albert ‘Eddy’ to her beloved ‘Alicky,’ the later Empress Alexandra. However, even here, you can see how perceptive Victoria was; she thought Alicky’s ‘gauche’ qualities, such as her shyness and her dislike of social occasions, would be seen in England as a positive and make her liked by the press, and public, whereas they would be failings in the Russian Court. She correctly sensed danger for her favourite grand-daughter in Russia, and was also well aware of the dangers that being royal meant. Her ability to deal with Kaiser Wilhelm was not passed on by her son, who disliked the Kaiser, and, by her death, Europe was changing. Anarchy, revolution and war were in the air and Europe was on the brink of danger.

Overall, this is a very interesting read. The author really makes the time come alive and there are some very moving stories in this book, such as Prince Eddy’s attempts to find a bride and the fluctuating fortunes of Princess May of Teck; plus a lot of detail about other members of the royal family, as well as those featured. For anyone with an interest in British history, this is an enjoyable, well written, account of Queen Victoria’s attempts to manipulate her children’s, and grandchildren’s, marriages and to influence politics in Europe with mixed success. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

I enjoyed this look at the role Queen Victoria played in the marriages of her seven crowned grandchildren. I always enjoy books about Queen Victoria and her descendants and the incredible role the family played in the politics of Europe.

However, I did not feel like I learned anything new in this book. It is however and interesting read if you enjoy the subject.