Exile by Jan Burchett, Sara Vogler aka Working Partners Limited

Rating: WARTY!

This is one of a series (the fifth) and is the second I've reviewed. The first one I read was actually the fourth in the series, titled Deception, and was a disappointment back in January 2016. I'd picked up both volumes at the same time and only just now got to this one, hoping it would be better. It wasn't! It had all the same problems the first volume had: first person, epistolic narrative, thoroughly modern language which didn't at all hark back to the Elizabethan era in which it was set. No one really wants to read archaic English, but you can write in a way which indicates history without going full-on Shakespeare.

This is a series which, judged by the titles (Assassin, Betrayal, Conspiracy, Deception, Exile), is intended to run to twenty six volumes. I can't think of anything more tedious than that! I started in on this only to see if it was indeed any better. My expectations that it would not be better were quickly and thoroughly met. It's written by a writing partnership whose members all contribute under the pseudonym of 'Grace Cavendish', the main character. I’d actually be more interested in learning exactly how that partnership works and how disputes are resolved than in reading another of these stories!

Anyway, Grace is a young lady courtier who is supposedly a pursuivant - an investigator for Queen Elizabeth. 'Pursuivant' didn't actually mean that, and in Elizabeth's time was far more likely to have still been used in its French version, poursuivant, so this felt wrong. In fact, her whole presence here feels wrong. The queen is in her thirties, so why she would be remotely interested in having a middle-grade-aged girl as a lady at court is a complete mystery. These "ladies" (not all of them were actually title-bearing) are supposed to be companions to the queen. I cannot imagine how companionable a gaggle of thirteen-year-olds would be to a mature queen. At that age, too, they wouldn't have been behaving like modern children - or even like children at all. Even thirteen-year-olds would have been considered marriageable maidens in that time, and would have had old male courtiers chasing after them, but none of that is represented here. This might well be appropriate for a middle-grade book if you want to keep your readers ignorant of real history, but all it served for me was to make it thoroughly unrealistic.

The story made little sense, too. The palace has an exiled princess being hosted by the queen. The princess is from the Middle East, and the royal leaders in her nation all speak perfect English, because during the crusades, an English Knight, rumored to be Richard Cœur de Lion himself, found himself seeking shelter and healing, and they learned English from him! Why Arabic potentates would harbor a crusader is a mystery which goes unresolved. Why their English should remain perfect after three hundred years is also unexplained. But that's what we have here. The plot involved the theft of a valuable ruby belonging to the visitor, but I lost interest long before it was even stolen, let alone was recovered, no doubt through Grace's efforts.

The worst thing about his story is the conspicuous consumption and flaunting of wealth. Never is a thought given to the poor and deprived, even as Grace is depicted as being a good friend to a maid and to one of the court clowns. I know that people back then actually didn’t spare much of a thought, if any at all, for the downtrodden, but given how Grace is portrayed as a modern girl, the fact that there isn't even a mention of the appalling way the commoners were treated and the conditions in which they lived is inexcusable. So this book fails as an interesting story and as a sort of history primer. I can't recommend this series at all.

Deception by Working Partners Limited

Rating: WARTY!

Here's another middle grade book which disappointed me. The main problem is that it was set in 1569 yet it read like it could have been written about events taking place yesterday. Obviously you don't want to write a novel in the actual language which was used over four hundred years ago, but you do want to try and imbue your writing with a little bit of antiquity. This one didn't feel that way. Worse than this, it's written in first person PoV, and worse than that, it's written as diary entries. These never work for me because they're patently unrealistic, recounting exact details and word-for-word conversations. It constantly throws me out of the story in disbelief. Worse than this, the author is so focused on including all her research in detailing daily events in Elizabethan times that the story loses all immediacy and urgency which is the whole point of using first person PoV (not that I agree there is a point!).

This is a series which, judged by the titles (Assassin, Betrayal, Conspiracy, Deception, and so on), is intended to run to twenty six volumes. I can't think of anything more tedious than that. It's penned (and I mean that in both senses of the word) by anonymous writers who all contribute under the pseudonym of 'Grace Cavendish', the main character. She's a young maid of honor who is supposedly a pursuivant - an investigator for Queen Elizabeth. 'Pursuivant' didn't actually mean that, and in Elizabeth's time was far more likely to have still been used in its French version, poursuivant.

Even if it were as the writer claims, and while the head of state was a woman, in 1569, they didn't even have adult women in any positions of responsibility, much less running around investigating anything. They would certainly never have had a young girl doing so, especially one who was so dis-empowered that she had to sneak around deceptively to get anything done instead of being allowed to pursue her investigations, None of this made any sense. Neither did it make sense that a woman of nobility, such as Lady Cavendish supposedly was, would have to kow-tow to, and live in fear of the "common" women who were employed on the palace staff.

In 1569, Elizabeth was in her mid-thirties and had been queen for over a decade, yet here she's portrayed as a petulant, ill-tempered brat who lacks control, and who has less maturity than the youthful story teller! Nonsense! Elizabeth was coolly navigating the waters of avoiding marriage - at this point to a French Valois - and dealing with the Pope's rejection of her as a valid monarch. She was hardly the spoiled child we see here.

Though this is supposedly set in late 1569, in the grip of an icy winter, at this time in that year, three Earls from the north of England were leading a rebellion against Elizabeth. They were trying to install Mary, Queen of Scots, on the throne in England, yet we're expected to believe that the sole thing bothering a petulant and spoiled Elizabeth was the introduction of a new silver coin? I'm sorry, but I cannot take this series seriously or pursue it. I guess I'm just not pursuivant enough!