** spoiler alert ** The Virgin’s Lover is the #5 in the Tudor series by Philippa Gregory. It’s the embellished story of the romance between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley the 1st Earl of Leicester. A significant amount of the novel is also dedicated to the suffering of his wife at the time, Amy, ending with the speculation that the Queen and her advisers had her killed to clear the path for her and Dudley to marry. In the real world Amy’s death is still a mystery. She was ill and could have fallen down the stairs on her own, or any number of killers could have thrown her down, no one will ever know for sure what happened to her. Such a scandal was raised by her death that Elizabeth had to swear off Dudley, who later ended up marrying a relative of hers, Lettice Knowls, The granddaughter of Mary Boleyn’s illegitimate daughter with King Henry VIII.

In this novel Gregory really shows a side of Elizabeth that isn’t so pretty. She is vain, weak, jealous, controlling and selfish to the point of stupidity and harm to others. Definitely her father’s daughter. So far I have found this to be the least entertaining of the Tudor series books. By the end your heart is breaking for poor Amy and you almost hate Elizabeth and Dudley.