"The Real Queen Charlotte: Inside the Real Bridgerton Court" is well-researched and readable. Her marriage to the King of England lasted nearly sixty years until her death, eighteen months before the death of her husband. The marriage saw the birth of fifteen children (and the death of the three youngest), unrest at home, the loss of the American colonies, the beheading of France's king and queen, and the king's descent into madness. I am ashamed to say I didn't know much about this queen and her era. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the history of the American Revolution, the history of the British Royals, or fans of "The Bridgertons."

This was a thorough and interesting book about George III's wife, Queen Charlotte, now so well known from popular TV shows Bridgerton and the spin-off Queen Charlotte. The writing style is engaging and very readable, and I also enjoyed the addition of the portraits and cartoons at the end of the book.

I really enjoyed this one. The author has written other Georgian biographies that I've enjoyed, so I was pleased to get a chance to review with one for #NetGalley. Curzon has a distinctive style of writing, and you can tell that she is well-informed about her biographical subjects. This would be a great book for anyone wanting to get the real scoop on Queen Charlotte after watching the Bridgerton series.

Queen Charlotte has recently become a popular icon for being featured in the highly acclaimed series, Bridgerton. There is a tv series based on her life coming out soon. Yet, this biography of Queen Charlotte proves that she was different from what the drama has portrayed her to be. Queen Charlotte was a German princess who married King George III. She initially had a good relationship, but When King George III started his descent into madness, Queen Charlotte’s happy married life was over.

Queen Charlotte was a woman who experienced many tragedies. She was a queen who was not interested in politics but was interested in solely caring for her family. She would grow to become a lonely, suspicious, and bitter woman. Yet, she remained dutiful to her husband. Queen Charlotte was also very charitable. There were times that I did not agree with her actions. She was very strict, especially with her daughters. Still, I found her to be a very tragic figure. She had to deal with her husband’s madness, and the pain knowing that her husband had already forgotten her.

Overall, this was a very comprehensive, though short, biography of Queen Charlotte. Because it is very concise, the biography does not go into much detail about her. Instead, it only highlights the major events of her life. Thus, I wished that it was longer because I think there is enough information to make a full book. Still, this is a good introduction to Queen Charlotte, and it allowed me to separate fact from fiction. I just hoped to look for a more in-depth biography on her. I recommend this for fans of The First Iron Lady, The Lost Queen, and The Georgian Princesses!

I read this ARC for an honest review
All thoughts and opinions are mine

This was fascinating
I really didn;t know much about the subject so this was enlightening for me
Well researched and loved the writing style

would really recomment this

An interesting (albeit too succint) biography of Queen Charotte from her place as the second daughter of an obscur German duke to her role as Queen consort of George III and the most formidable matriarch of the Hanoverian monarchs of Great Britain.

Catherine Curzon manages to give us a brilliant portrait of Charlotte but I was left hungry for more. A more substantial biography has been long overdue but in the meantime Ms. Curzon's work remains a very accomplished introduction to one of England’s longest serving consorts.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Pen & Sword for this great ARC

A wonderful and in depth look at a woman lost to a world history that focuses so much on her husband and her sons. While those interested in history know that Queen Charlotte wasn’t the social leader she’s portrayed as in Bridgerton, it’s still nice to have the spotlight on Charlotte for once.

3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you so much to Pen & Sword and NetGalley for an e-arc of this book.

I found this to be a good bite-sized introduction to Queen Charlotte.

The book doesn’t go into exacting detail, but this does make it good for those looking into an introduction to the time period and to reading history books.

For myself I did find it a bit too simple, but I would definitely recommend it to those who are just starting to read history books/just want a general overview of the time period and Queen Charlotte.

Lots of facts. Lists of children and some of their marriages. I think I would have enjoyed it more, as a fictional story, rather than the timeline of Queen Charlottes life as a non-fiction. I enjoy Margaret George and her way of telling historical fiction regarding Kings and Queens.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This is a biography of a family-oriented woman that had been forced to make some political decisions because of the illness of her husband.
It begins good - with a comprehensive list of all her children and their partners..

Charlotte’s story is described from a scratch with the help of historical documents.

We can see the story of her parents from a German state that the majority of us have to look up on the map.

I liked that the author compares the events with what we know today - such as PR. She also explains Charlotte’s treatment of her daughters. It's still unbelievable for a 21st-century reader, but the author shed light on it.

The most interesting part was the bride selection process in the English Court.

In the end, I can only recommend this book because you can learn some facts known from history lessons from the woman's point of view.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pen and Swords History for a free digital review copy. This is my honest review.

My thanks to Pen & Sword Books for granting my wish for ‘The Real Queen Charlotte: Inside the Real Bridgerton Court’ by Catherine Curzon.

The author is a historian specialising in the 18th Century and the author of a number of popular books on the Georgian royals. Her latest is a biography of Queen Charlotte, whose fictional counterpart plays a pivotal role in ‘Bridgerton’, the highly popular Netflix series set during the reign of George III.

When only seventeen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was chosen to be the bride of King George III. While it began as an arranged marriage, the shy princess and the young king were well matched. They were married for nearly sixty years and were parents to fifteen children. Yet political issues, social unrest, wars, and the king’s health including his madness all took their toll.

I found this a straightforward, concise, and accessible biography that focused on Charlotte’s relationships with her husband and children as well as detailed her long reign as Queen Consort.

As is usual with Pen & Sword titles the book contained notes, a bibliography, and an index. However, I would have enjoyed a section that compared and contrasted the real Queen Charlotte with her Bridgerton character.

The story of a real life princess from a small court who had an arranged marriage with the king of one of the most powerful countries in Europe. They loved each other, had a big family and lived happily ever after. Ok, the happily ever after didn't quite happen. She didn't get along with her in-laws and her husband preferred she stay somewhat isolated from court doings and politics. Then her eldest son and husband didn't agree on politics. But all lives have some problems. She did have her daughters for company. But then her husband went mad....

Yes, this is the life story of Queen Charlotte, King George III's wife. There were a lot of wonderful things and not so wonderful in her life. It is kind of ironic that when she was young and recently came to London she complained about being kept somewhat isolated and then turned around and did that to her own daughters. In fact, she kept them very close, didn't encourage them to participate in court life and very much discouraged them from getting married. The public made comments about the daughters being kept living like a nunnery.

The work was well researched and easily readable. I learned a lot of things I didn't know. I wish there had been more of a conclusion that talked a bit about her influence but overall a good biographer. For those who are interested in the Bridgeton series, this covers some of the real events that happened during that time period.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest opinion.

Having read and heard only a little about Queen Charlotte before ever reading or watching Netflix's Bridgertons, I was interested in finding out more about the real woman. Curzon gives a good account of Charlotte's life as queen of Britain, a life which definitely wasn't all gowns and balls.

The writing was easy to follow, because it wasn't info-dumps and big chunks of facts. Facts and information was woven nicely into the story of Queen Charlotte's life.

A QUICK AND CONCISE BIOGRAPHY

You don't have to have watched Bridgerton to enjoy this biography about Queen Charlotte, the wife of the ill-fated George III of England. Curzon takes you through the ups and downs of Charlotte's life in this concise and to the point biography. There are no detours, making this book very easy to read and finish while still getting a lot of useful information and insights. That being said, it is very matter-of-fact and not all that deep. But if you're not after that, this is the book for you. Only thing that gave me a brief pause was the fact that Curzon decided to cite herself as a source. As a historian, I always find this to be a red flag in history non-fiction.

As shocking as this may sound, I’ve only watched one single episode of the Netflix saga “Bridgerton” before deciding this wasn’t a show for me. And yet, the short mention in the blurb of this book was, amongst other things, why I requested an ARC, the main two reasons being that I had never previously heard of Queen Charlotte and am, by nature, a very curious man.
It was very interesting, too, to delve into this woman’s story. Born into the royal Mecklenburg-Strelitz family in 1744, she grew up in that tiny and rather obscure duchy in northern Germany, one of those countless minor principalities of the rag rug that constituted the territories of the Holy Roman Empire before its inglorious end during the Napoleonic Wars. As a Protestant princess with no political weight whatsoever, she was deemed the perfect bride for king George III of Great Britain and of Ireland. They married in 1761 and in the first years led a perfectly happy and monogamous life—her husband was the rare example of a monarch not frolicking about with concubines and mistresses—which was graced with fifteen (!) children, thirteen of which should reach adulthood.
What should have been a tranquil river for the Queen consort, however, turned out to become a quite tumultuous reign. Not only did the French Revolution happen during that time, then the rise to power of Napoleon, his becoming emperor and fighting a nearly constant war in Europe for two decades, but her husband fell ill, too. A mental illness for which, back then, there was neither cure nor adequate treatment but what today we would consider imprisonment and regular sessions of torture of the sovereign.
Not an easy situation for a woman like Charlotte, who was always more interested in more etheral activities (arts, floriculture, and parks) than politics. As if that weren’t hard enough for her, her children turned out to be nothing like their sobre royal father, especially her sons, who rebelled against their upbringing by scandalous behaviour and liaisons.
Yes, Catherine Curzon’s book drew me in right from the start and remained a pleasant and interesting read all the way till the end. It was the right mix of historical data, well-researched explanations, with personal insights into the Queen’s character, her reactions, her feelings, as far as those can be narrated with accuracy. The book remained devoid of pedantic listings and details but was rich enough to paint a compelling picture of the times the Queen lived in and the characters involved. I don’t regret for a second having requested it and feel like I know more about Queen Charlotte now.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC copy of this book!

The hook for this book was a comparison to the Queen Charlotte in the Bridgeton series, which of course caught my eye. I'm glad it did as I overall enjoyed this book and would give it 3.75 stars. It's perfect for someone who is interested in Charlotte as a person (and her extended family), but doesn't want to get bogged down into the political details occurring at this time, and don't want a monograph that's 700+ pages long.

Ironically, I actually read this ARC while on vacation in London, and traveled to many of the locations listed in this book (Buckingham Palace, Windsor, Kew Gardens, Westminster). It added some additional excitement to reading this book, so much that I would recommend to those who are visiting England.

Pros: This is a very approachable book for someone wanting to learn more about Queen Charlotte, British royal history, or 18th century England. Charlotte's life was long, and leads to many plot lines that are interesting, including how her children turned on her when they were grown. I especially enjoyed how Curzon focused on the changing of her relationship with her husband, which lead to many triumphs for their family, but also many heartaches as he spun into a mental health crisis.

Cons: I think the writing could have been a bit more flowing and not so choppy. It was very focused on "X happened, then Y happened, and this is how the person felt." More focus on human feelings and the connections between these events would have helped. Nevertheless, I did enjoy the subject and would look to pick up more reading by Catherine Curzon.

A reasonably good biography highlighting the life of Queen Charlotte and the events that made her the woman she was. I appreciated the attention given to her relationship with her husband, and seeing the stresses on her brought about by his illnesses and her sons' power grabs. I did think there was more repetition than needed in the book, and far more foreshadowing than was needed. "They did not know then that , , , "on practically every page was far too overdone and should have been cut by an editor by at least half. That drove me crazy and seriously detracted from my reading of the book!

But overall a good book, a good look at the time period and the people in the age. Good for those interested in reading not only about the real Queen Charlotte, but about the time period, King George III, and his time on the throne as well.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

I really wanted to like this book as I love early modern history, and as a fan of colonial America I always enjoy the perspective of the Revolution from England. I was hoping to get more information about Queen Charlotte but this moved at breakneck speed, zooming between different parts of her life without spending too much time on anything that seemed important. I realize Charlotte didn't want much to do with her husband's affairs, but I don't believe she didn't have any opinion on what was going on. The constant foreshadowing ("...little does she know how this will impact her future...") was also annoying and felt like I was reading something a third-grader wrote. I really would've preferred this book to be more fleshed out and developed with more detail.

Charlotte of Mecklenburg- Strelitz is the matriarch of the Bridgerton court, chosen to be the teen bride of King George III, she didn’t meet her groom before the day of her wedding but their marriage was still loving and faithful. They were married for nearly sixty years and had more than a dozen children. When King George III’s health started failing, Queen Charlotte took care of him, becoming more of a caretaker than companion. Queen Charlotte transformed from a timid girl to a fearless leader in that time, there were few that would cross her, her temper would even make her children scatter. She was done taking crap from those around her and she rose above them all. This is her story, the real story of Queen Charlotte and the Bridgerton court.

This book is extremely informative and a nice read. I watch the show Bridgerton on Netflix, so I was really interested to read about the real thing and this was perfect. I know so much more than I did before reading this. The super cool bonus is that it comes with pictures of the real Queen Charlotte and King George III that were really fun to look at. I enjoyed this book quite a lot.

I really enjoyed this book, finding it very informative yet in no ways dull. It follows the life of Queen Charlotte, who ruled beside King George III of England in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
While it may appear at first to be a short book, a lot of detail is contained within the pages. It clearly traces Charlotte's quiet early life, her early years as Queen, and the struggles that she endured once George's health began failing. Along with the 'narrative' (as this is presented more narratively,) there is an abundance of primary quotations from Charlotte herself, newspapers, and those around her.
The only thing that really took away from my enjoyment was the heavy-handed use of foreshadowing in the early parts of the book. Charlotte would be described doing something in her childhood, and then the author will remark that "one day..." or use a similar signal phrase to look ahead to future events. This would be fine here and there, but it is very prevalent and gets tedious after a while. As a narrative history, it is better for the 'story' to simply flow along.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants information on the real "Queen from Bridgerton" or who is interested in the royal families of England.