Very comprehensive biography of Anne Stuart. It was very concise and easily readable. I recommend this for anyone that love The Favorite and wish to know more about this forgotten queen!

#GoodQueenAnne #NetGalley

After watching The Favourite with the wonderful Olivia Cole and I had to find out about this monarch, often overlooked by male historians.

In a time of extremes, Anne's power struggles, religious, political and personal are fascinating.

She suffered constant illness and 17 pregnancies which ended in miscarriage. Only one child lived, William who died aged 11. Despite all of this she oversaw the creation of the United Kingdom which led to its rise as a great military power.

Her relationship with Sarah Jennings, the Duchess of Marlborough is also fascinating. Their relationship deteriorated when the dominating Sarah, who used Anne shamelessly for her husband's and family's personal gain, was supplanted by Sarah's cousin Abigail Masham. Sarah maliciously spread rumors about Anne’s supposed 'unnatural' dalliances with other women and also copies of their passionate letters to one another.

The book is an excellent combination of well researched personal and political scandals and intrigues. It is a fascinating story.

Thanks to #NetGalley for the ARC.

I

There is little known of Queen Anne who’s family line dates back hundreds of years on the Stuart side. I love and find this kind of Scottish history fascinating to say the least. To know a little bit of her life is worth knowing and how her reign came about and how long she lived as Queen..

Thank you NetGalley for the digital ARC. Not much is known about Queen Anne which seems sad as she was the last of the Stuarts. I do hope someone takes a hint and more people write about this great woman.

This book is a clear and detailed story of Queen's Anne life.
What I liked the most about the book is the fact that I learned about her life and the way she became Queen in the context of history of that time. I learned a lot of things about her father and her sister. So, it was not only a book about Queen Anne.
It is a good read for history lovers.

A good biography of queen Anne, though the author does tend to repeat the same facts many times , I recommend to any lover of historical fiction

This book was released on 13 May 2019, so it is waiting for you in bookshops everywhere! And if you are interested in Queen Anne or royal history, you should be reading this. Anne tends to treated one of two ways in the historiography; she is either treated as a fast footnote or becomes a textbook. Sometimes you want a fast introduction, and sometimes you want to learn everything possible, but most of us typically want a happy medium. This book thoroughly treats Anne’s life without getting bogged down.

I hate that Anne’s life has become permanently intertwined with that of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. They weren’t conjoined twins, they were two separate people! I think that Cromwell treated the subject well. She referenced both Sarah and John Churchill (the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough) frequently, because they did play a large role in her life. However, Cromwell, also touched on other “players” in Anne’s life and court, and recognised that there were other people who had an impact on her as well. (This book is proof that you can discuss an important figure in someone’s life without them taking over the story.)

I thoroughly enjoyed her use of primary sources throughout. She includes many different primary sources (usually letters and correspondence), which gives you an idea of what Anne was actually thinking and writing to people. There are also several different paintings featured, showcasing Anne at different points during her life. Cromwell smartly gives the reader details about paintings, including the importance of what Anne is wearing and/or not wearing (ie. a crown). Anne’s wardrobe isn’t a main topic of discussion in the book but these asides do tie in nicely with what is there.

Britain's Queen Anne (1665-1714) is not someone I really knew anything about, so I was excited to see a new biography on her come out. By the time I had finished Good Queen Anne I could only ask myself: why is she not more well known? She was everything we would want in a world leader today: a strong woman, a fierce moderate, an independent thinker, and a kind human being. Author Judith Cromwell does an excellent job bringing Anne to life as a fully human and relatable royal: a young woman, a princess, a married woman, and a queen. She united England and Scotland, helped steer England through the long War of Spanish Succession, and held her country together at a time when party politics was leaning to extremes on both sides. I loved that Anne always insisted on her cabinet being as moderate and free of party politics as she could manage- something today's politics could learn from. She insisted on putting what was good for the country ahead of what was good for an individual, whether that individual was her or not. And she tried to keep from being beholden to either party, something not always possible during war.

The book did have its' flaws, mostly in the writing style in my opinion. Cromwell has a tendency to begin by describing the weather before entering a new section, which works in small doses but towards the end began to happen so often that it felt contrived. While I expect the intent was to make the reader feel a part of the events it became something I was so conscious of that it would jolt me from the book to notice instead of flowing seamlessly. But my real problem with the writing was the overwhelming amount of repetition. While I don't mind a bit of repetition to help keep people and titles straight over the course of a 600 page book, I don't need to be constantly told that Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, was Anne's close friend and confident (until Anne became Queen. It was downhill after that). I don't need to be constantly told that Sarah became threatened and jealous of Anne's maid Abigail and believed (despite no evidence) that Abigail was influencing Anne's politics. While the relationship between Anne and Sarah was an essential part to Anne's story, there were better ways to emphasize that then the repetition Cromwell used- occasionally almost to the word.

Overall, Good Queen Anne is a wonderful, well-researched book about a strong woman who stood her ground in the face of even stronger personalities, power plays, and outright bullying by family members, "friends", and politicians. Cromwell reveals a queen I didn't know I wanted to know about- but am incredibly glad I do now. Three cheers for Good Queen Anne!

*Many thanks to Judith Lissauer Cromwell, McFarland & Company Inc, and Netgalley for providing me with ARC in exchange for my honest review.*
Good Queen Anne was one of the Stuart monarchs of which I knew little, which was a shame as she was the last Stuart, and although she reigned for a relatively short period of time, this Queen is still well-remembered and her politics appreciated. The book is rich in detail, concentrating on nuances of politics, especially in the second part, when Anne becomes the queen, however, it also descrribes complicated friendship with Sarah Churchill, the Dutchess of Marlborough, and I found this part of the book interesting as I had a very vague idea of Mr Winston Churchill's ancestors. I admit Queen Anne's childhood, her relations with James II and her sister Mary were of special interest since I had almost no knowledge of these, and the so-called Glorious Revolution's background is truly well explained.
The book is well-written and readable for a reader like myself who has some interest in the period but would like to learn more.

A well-researched, thorough and insightful biography of Queen Anne. I particularly enjoyed the extensive use of primary material, particularly the letters, in which Anne’s voice comes over loud and clear. As does the rather less pleasant voice of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough – what a nasty piece of work she turns out to be. Certifiable, in my opinion, and Anne’s forbearance with her is remarkable. Anne, on the contrary comes across as a thoroughly decent woman, trying to do her best in a very difficult job. An illuminating and entertaining account, from which I learnt a great deal.

An engaging biography of a Queen who ascended unexpectedly to the throne of England, untrained in statecraft, looked down upon as a female, and who died relatively young. Anne remained level-headed and stable despite England's ongoing war with Catholic France, and the regicide that had upended the English monarchy not that long before. The author deftly balances Anne Stuart the person with the political and social background of the nation and Queen Anne's role as England's monarch.