The Shadow King

Astraea #2

by Jane Stevenson

This novel, set in seventeenth-century Holland, Restoration London, and Barbados, is the second volume of Jane Stevenson's historical trilogy. The Winter Queen, the first volume, told of the mature passion of Elizabeth of Bohemia and her clandestine lover, an African price and former slave. Balthasar Stuart, the secret child born of their love, is the protagonist of The Shadow King. Now a young doctor, he struggles to come to terms with his rich, difficult, and complex heritage. Neither black nor white, royal nor commoner, African nor European, he is in every sense a pretender, and truly at home nowhere in the world. Race and identity - great human themes, great American themes - are at the heart of this extraordinary work.
Driven out of Holland by the plague, Balthasar makes his way first to the raffish, cynical world of Restoration London and then to Barbados, a colonial society marked by slavery and savage racism. Every stage of his life is informed by the political and religious background of the era, and the rich, everyday human past, too, is brought vividly to life, in people's habits of thought and speech, their food and fashions, their medical practices.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction

303 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Dr. Jane Stevenson (born 1959) is a UK author who was born in London and brought up in London, Beijing and Bonn. She has lectured in history at Sheffield University, and teaches literature and history at the University of Aberdeen. Her fiction books include Several Deceptions, a collection of four novellas; a novel, London Bridges; and the historical trilogy made up of the novels The Winter Queen, The Shadow King, and The Empress of the Last Days. Stevenson lives in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

Her academic publications include Women Latin Poets (Oxford University Press), Early Modern Women Poets with Peter Davidson (Oxford University Press) and The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, co-edited with Peter Davidson (Prospect Books).

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

You have to work a little at reading Jane Stevenson's historical fiction. She's an academic who teaches literature and history at a university in Britain. Her writing is erudite and her characters complex and learned. You certainly won't get anyone "bellowing like a longshoreman" like another book set in the same period I read recently (though it may have just been poorly translated). But I don't mean to make her sound pedantic. There is an emotional core to the stories she tells in these books (this is the second in a trilogy) that becomes more powerful and poignant by the book's end. What I like is how she stuffs you into the time and place of each novel; it feels often not just unfamiliar, but sometimes uncomfortable and even claustrophobic too, as you stretch yourself to see these people as they saw themselves, their world, and their place in it.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the sequel to The Winter Queen and is about Balthasar, the son of Elizabeth of Bohemia and Pelagius. It follows Balthasar's progress through young adulthood up to middle age as he attempts to find his place in the world of the late 17th century. Despite his noble blood and the mystical dreams his parents had for him, Balthasar ends up a successful doctor in London (after a brief sojourn in Barbados), contentedly living a very sober and respectable middle class lifestyle. Stevenson does a wonderful job of illuminating the realities of everyday life in Restoration England and in England's growing caribbean colonies.

[Annette · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is another one of those books that could have been good: a man who could be king, a secret marriage, different worlds and cultures... the writing was not bad but it just didn't bring me into the story. I felt no compassion for the main character or any of the characters. The dialog was not that great but the overall story could have been really good.

In the end it's about a man accepting his life and family vs. trying to reach for what could have been. It was a sequel, so maybe the first book was better (?)

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sequel to The Winter Queen tells the story of the son of an African prince, formerly enslaved, who marries a European Queen in the 1600s. One of the asides is the protagonist's is the encounter with real life writer Aphra Behn whom I knew little of except for her book Oroonoko written in 1688. When you finish this novel, reach for the final in the serious, The Empress of Last Days which takes you into modern times.

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second in a trilogy. This one focused less on the cultural clash issues at the heart of the first volume, & more on issues of race & class (& to a lesser extent the third element in that holy trinity of contemporary academic life, gender). It was also focused on the main character's efforts to reconcile the scientific practice of medicine he learns at Leiden, the leading medical school of the 17th century, & what he remembers learning from his father about African medicine.

[Shaheen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting but unsatisfying. The main character's past is never explained, and it's difficult to get too involved with any of the characters.

A little research revealed that this is the second book in a trilogy, and the first book explains the past.

[Candace · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate this book. It's boring and pointless. Maybe it wouldn't be so painful if I had read the first one. The story just doesn't go anywhere. Not going to bother finishing.