“Victoria is an absolutely captivating novel of youth, love, and the often painful transition from immaturity to adulthood. Daisy Goodwin breathes new life into Victoria’s story, and does so with sensitivity, verve, and wit.” – AMANDA FOREMANDrawing on Queen Victoria’s diaries, which she first started reading when she was a student at Cambridge University, Daisy Goodwin-creator and writer of the … University, Daisy Goodwin-creator and writer of the new PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria and author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter-brings the young nineteenth-century monarch, who would go on to reign for 63 years, richly to life in this magnificent novel.
Early one morning, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria is roused from bed with the news that her uncle William IV has died and she is now Queen of England. The men who run the country have doubts about whether this sheltered young woman, who stands less than five feet tall, can rule the greatest nation in the world.
Despite her age, however, the young queen is no puppet. She has very definite ideas about the kind of queen she wants to be, and the first thing is to choose her name.
“I do not like the name Alexandrina,” she proclaims. “From now on I wish to be known only by my second name, Victoria.”
Next, people say she must choose a husband. Everyone keeps telling her she’s destined to marry her first cousin, Prince Albert, but Victoria found him dull and priggish when they met three years ago. She is quite happy being queen with the help of her prime minister, Lord Melbourne, who may be old enough to be her father but is the first person to take her seriously.
On June 19th, 1837, she was a teenager. On June 20th, 1837, she was a queen. Daisy Goodwin’s impeccably researched and vividly imagined new book brings readers Queen Victoria as they have never seen her before.
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The narrative is of a time of kings and queens. It is a great coming of age story of a young girls struggles. So well written and researched. I highly recommend this book and you will not want to put the book down!
I don’t normally read novels about real people, but I’m Ever so glad I did this time. I knew next to nothing about Queen Victoria,. I was enjoying the book immensely, then began wondering about how much it matched the facts of her real life. I was delighted to find that the author was following Victoria’s life faithfully. It’s a very interesting book, very skillfully written.
If you want a glimpse of what it was like for Queen Victoria from the time she was 18 and became queen until she married Albert, this is a great book. She was immature but determined, naive but loyal. You can imagine how many people tried to control her and influence her.
If, like me, you’re intrigued with anything to do with the British royal family, you’ve surely discovered PBS’s new series “Victoria”. This book was written by the writer of the series, and fleshes out the time in the young monarch’s life when she first took the throne. Other books might have more detail and a wider breadth, but this novel-style version of a slice of Victoria’s life is satisfying, especially for those who might find biographical methods of storytelling dry. Covered here is Victoria’s difficult relationship with her mother, preoccupation (crush?) with her first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, as well as the complicated courting between her and her cousin (and eventual husband) Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, Germany. Victoria’s complicated personality comes blazing through, sometimes making the reader sympathetic and sometimes frustrated. We come to understand that, even as the queen of England, Victoria was a flesh-and-blood mortal who lived in the moment and was learning as she went. Sounds like any of us! Check this one out before or after you watch the series!
I loved this book. I listened to the audio version, and it is wonderfully narrated. The story differs in some key respects from the movie, The Young Victoria, that came out in 2009 and which I also love. Both this novel and that older movie make me eager to see the upcoming PBS series that is based on this novel.
The characters were full and rich, in my opinion, and the reader feels all the conflicting emotions of the young queen and those around her, so many of whom (all of whom?) were juggling for their own pieces of power or favor. Some readers have felt too much focus was put on the relationship with Melbourne, but to me it rang true for how young she was and how sheltered she’d been. I would love to read a novel that covers Victoria’s real and lasting love story with Prince Albert, but that wasn’t this story.
Reading Victoria made me glad to be a commoner in America in 2016, even though it is fun to imagine being in Victoria’s England for just a little while.
It’s been at least a decade since I read any historical fiction, but there have been so many new interesting books out in the last couple of years that I’ve added a few to my TBR pile. Victoria was one of them. I think this is my favorite novel about the life of Queen Victoria, by far. Historical fiction has to be both historically accurate but still entertaining, and Victoria succeeds on both accounts. I love it when I can read an historical novel and learn something factual!
Queen Victoria has always fascinated me because she had so much power at such a young age (much like Queen Elizabeth II), yet she carried herself with grace and dignity and wielded power that men several times her age were unable to manage. This newest novel about her life is gripping, beautifully written and has enough historical research and detail that it feels like a work of nonfiction. Daisy Goodwin has done a fantastic job of bringing Victoria to life. One of the best books I’ve read in the last year.
I watched the PBS version and found the ebook discounted. I really enjoyed reading the book. There’s just something about a book.
Goodwin’s story-telling style is very engaging and easy-going. She really brought the characters to life. I was surprised at much of what I learned in the reading – early-years Victoria and later-years Victoria were VERY different people… This should not be surprising given the length of her reign and the changes in the world around her during its course, but it somehow was nevertheless. It made for more than a few “no way?!” moments while reading, which are always fun.
Upon finishing I was drawn to read more – particularly about the Albert/Victoria years. I had recently gotten a non-fiction kindle daily deal and turned to that next – that’s where I got a little confused…
I KNOW THIS IS FICTION. It’s billed as such and the author has latitude when writing it. BUT historical fiction tends to stick to the facts where they’re known and only forage into fiction when they’re not. I found fairly significant discrepancies between the people/relationships in the novel and the non-fiction – and they were essential to the story. I haven’t delved into this – did she just go in a different direction? was the non-fiction somehow wrong? If something is billed as a novel about the life of the actual Victoria, I expect it to track with the facts wherever possible, so the book lost a star on that…
Anyone out there have any more information/thoughts??
Full review: http://blog.jill-elizabeth.com/2017/02/17/book-review-victoria-by-daisy-goodwin/
Cant wait to start reading this book! Super excited pre-order yours today!
I LOVED this! It was almost like reading a Jane Austen novel, except the protagonist is the queen, and so all of the Victorian (no pun intended) rules are turned on their head. I definitely wonder how much of it is fact and how much fiction, because it reads exactly like a novel, though.
The story follows young Queen Victoria, from her girlhood initially to her early years as a reigning monarch, at a time when women have very little respect among the men of Parliament. She is a sheltered teenager with a complicated and codependent relationship with her mother. When her Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, offers to be her personal secretary, she at first declines after hearing that he has a reputation as a womanizer. But she quickly learns that she cannot do without him, and changes her mind. What follows is their story, primarily. It’s an ill-fated love story, at least a told in this version, between a nineteen year old inexperienced queen and a fifty-something year old widower–and while that sounds super creepy without other facts, it’s just sweet and sad as Goodwin relates it.
Melbourne is a prince (figuratively), always preferring Victoria’s happiness and best interest to his own. Ultimately this is why he steps out of the way, to make way for Albert, who was to be her king consort. I had always heard that Victoria and Albert were a love match and that she adored him, despite all the rules that typically surround royal marriages, so it was a surprise that she had anyone else in her history. Had their age disparity been less than it was, I would have been sorry they didn’t end up together despite all the political ramifications that might have followed… but it is very clear that they were never meant to be. And somehow, though I hardly thought it possible, I actually was rooting for Albert at the end. Though I was sad for Melbourne.
My rating: *****
Language: none
Violence: none
Sexual content: none
Political content: none (historical only)
I am a big fan of two main categories this book falls under: (1) Historical Fiction (2) The Royal Family. This book follows the young Queen Victoria from when she has the Country and all its people thrust upon her shoulders one month after her 18th birthday to four years into her regency. The story line is based off of Queen Victoria’s diaries and also follows the TV series, Victoria; both of which were written by Daisy Goodwin. The turmoils of her new burden of power is what makes others, to include those near and dear to her, show their true colors. She must decide who she can trust to take her seriously while she tries to restore order and reputation tarnished by her uncles, the past monarchs.
Through all the turmoil the young Queen must go through, her trusted governess, Lehzen, is my number one favorite character in the book. With this being roughly the first four years you will read about the Queen learning to become an adult from having lived a very sheltered life so, at times, she is a bit on the annoying side with her manners as all “teenagers” are. The story line has the normal love story which, if you know your history, was a given.
A good read all-in-all with hardly any grammatical errors; no harking on my writing please as I am not an author nor do I have a publishing agent. Was easy to leap right into her writing and follow along with ease; very engaging and hooked me right into wanting to watch her mini-series next.
I received this book for free from SheSpeaks as part of a pre-launch campaign however, all opinions are my own.
A good piece of historical fiction leaves you hungry for more information about its main characters. Each night I read this book I found it harder to put down, wanting to see what happened next. The first nineteen years of Queen Victoria’s life were absolutely fascinating and I can’t get my hands on information about the remainder of her life fast enough. Before this book I had not heard of the masterpiece presentation of Victoria on PBS created and written by Daisy Goodwin but now I will most definitely be tuning in.
If you enjoyed the first season of Victoria on PBS, you should enjoy this book version of the season–with more details about court and palaces and inner thoughts and emotions. Most entertaining.
I loved this rendition of Queen Victoria’s early life. The tale brings the reader back to that era of majesty into the hidden moments of Victoria’s inspiring life.
A friend recommended this book after watching the adaptation. I enjoyed the book and history, though I must admit the author did not reach the epic love of Jane Eyre. Overall an enjoyable read.
“What does a queen do?”
Shortly after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria is awakened to the news that her uncle the king has died and she is now Queen of England. She must learn the ways of her new court, come to know who to trust, and continue on despite mistakes made.
Having watched the TV series first, I was interested to see just what the book would bring to the table. Though we have glimpses of side characters, the focus remains almost solely on Victoria, and that is where its strength lies. We are allowed to follow Victoria from just before she becomes queen, and we experience her struggles with her.
Those who have seen the series will recognize the plot threads that make up each episode and where they are expanded upon. For fans of the show, I highly recommend this fictional book.
I could not stop reading this book.
“THEY THINK I AM STILL A LITTLE GIRL WHO IS NOT CAPABLE OF BEING A QUEEN”
In less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, in 1837, Alexandrina Victoria became Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. She was sheltered and controlled by her mother while growing up. She was small in her stature, female and they thought she was too unappealing to be on the throne. As soon as William IV passed, she surprised them all and started taking care of what needed to be taken care of.
She met with ministers alone, and one of those ministers became Victoria’s private secretary. Lord Melbourne might have become more than that, but everyone argued that she was destined to marry her cousin. When Victoria had met her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Doburg and Gotha when she was a child, she thought he was stiff and critical. Later when she met him again she had a different idea about what kind of a husband he could be.
This novel brings the young queen more richly to life. It uses Victoria’s diaries and the gifts of history and written drama from the author.
I have always admired Queen Victoria and her transition from being a child into a young adult. I love how this shows her desire to be the kind of Queen she wants to be and the steps she took to make it happen.
Very much like the PBS program. Enjoyable
Great story. Thoroughly researched. I love reading history as a novel. It is so much easier to understand.