Sorry kids, no feet.

In her latest novel, it appears Allison Weir is trying to take a page out of another Tudor author (who shall remain nameless). Weir seems to have lost her voice. In general, I am a fan of Weir’s fiction. I find her non-fiction hit or miss but that’s another story. Her latest releases,[b:A Dangerous Inheritance: A Novel of Tudor Rivals and the Secret of the Tower|12959266|A Dangerous Inheritance A Novel of Tudor Rivals and the Secret of the Tower|Alison Weir|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1326549930s/12959266.jpg|17229103], and this novel, [b:The Marriage Game: A Novel of Queen Elizabeth I|22291586|The Marriage Game A Novel of Queen Elizabeth I|Alison Weir|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1401077067s/22291586.jpg|26022316], have both fallen flat.
Weir starts her latest novel about Tudor queen, Elizabeth I, on a high note. “She was twenty-five, and all but two of her years in this world has been testing. But she has been honed from fine steel. She had survived bastardy, scandal, controversy and accusations of treason and heresy. Converted to the true, Protestant faith in childhood, she had steered herself steadily thought the stormy waters stirred up by her Catholic sister, the late queen, and come at last to a safe harbor. Who would have thought that she, the least of King Henry’s children would one day wear a crown?” The novel also ends on a high note. Be warned, I’m not putting this next quote in a spoiler. I think we all know what happens to Elizabeth I. “Presently her ladies leaned over her to see if she was asleep, and found that eternity had beckoned and that she had gone from them, mildly, easily, like an apple falling softy from a tree—and sweet England the poorer for it.” This line actually brought a tear to my eye. The two above passages were the best parts of the entire novel. There is not much else worth mentioning between this beginning and end.
The majority of this book focuses on Elizabeth’s relationship with Robert Dudley. If I would have been given a copy of this book with the names of characters removed, I’d swear I was reading a book about two year olds constantly throwing temper tantrums. I have two, two year-olds. I know a few things about temper tantrums. For nearly three quarters of this book, I read through pages and pages of tantrums followed by glorious make-up activities. I just wanted to reach through the screen on my kindle to throttle someone and yell “Just stop already!”
One of the book’s high points comes at the very end. Elizabeth has finally ended her “marriage games” and is forced to focus on the immediate threat of the approaching Spanish armada. Weir deals with England’s defeat of the Spanish armada with a stroke of brilliance. Had the entire book been written with the hand that wrote the end, this may have been a five star novel.