Historical
Her Mother's Daughter
By Audrey Johnson
Feb 9, 2010 - 4:51:55 PM

Born into a world filled with the greatest luxuries available, Mary’s life spiraled into one of rejection, disappointment, longing, and fear when Ann Boleyn appeared in her father’s life.  Sent from home, kept from her mother, and denied financial support, Mary found herself in a world where her father deplored her mere existence.  Young and alone, she was forced to learn how to maneuver through the English court and maintain her faith, as well as her life.  Nearing forty years of age when she was finally proclaimed Queen, her rule over England and her Spanish husband provided her no joy or comfort. 

Beneath the savagery so often attributed to her lay a wounded but hopeful woman searching for love and stability.  Her journey towards these things was difficult, and its failure turned her even more to her faith for respite.  Vehement in her beliefs and left with nothing at the end of her reign, Queen Mary clung to her mother’s memory for guidance. 

HER MOTHER’S DAUGHTER seamlessly displays the often overlooked woman behind Queen “Bloody” Mary.  Julianne Lee handles a typically despised character so beautifully that the reader develops unexpected sympathy for a Queen who clawed her way out of the depths of disrespect only to find more loneliness and desperation.  Incorporating perfect details from her father and brother’s courts and the discord between Protestants and Catholics, Lee’s engaging novel submerges the reader into local and worldwide political intrigue to fully depict the world in which Mary lived.  Her search for love and her inner longings show that, despite her reputation, Mary was simply a woman with the same desires and hopes as every female.  HER MOTHER’S DAUGHTER is a wonderfully written book focusing on a rarely researched and depicted monarch trying to find a life amidst the aftereffects of King Henry VIII’s reign.