Historical fiction is my favorite genre and what I read the most of but somehow I had never read a book about Queen Victoria of England, until now. She’s arguably one of England’s most famous queens whose children went on to marry into almost every royal family in the world. When I stumbled upon Victoria by Daisy Goodwin in Books a Million I had to buy it . Since this is historical fiction and based on events that actually happened my review will have spoilers.

Synopsis

In 1837, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria – sheltered, small in stature, and female – became Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Many thought it was preposterous: Alexandrina — Drina to her family — had always been tightly controlled by her mother and her household, and was surely too unprepossessing to hold the throne. Yet from the moment William IV died, the young Queen startled everyone: abandoning her hated first name in favor of Victoria; insisting, for the first time in her life, on sleeping in a room apart from her mother; resolute about meeting with her ministers alone.

One of those ministers, Lord Melbourne, became Victoria’s private secretary. Perhaps he might have become more than that, except everyone argued she was destined to marry her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. But Victoria had met Albert as a child and found him stiff and critical: surely the last man she would want for a husband….

My Thoughts

Unfortunately, I found this book to be very dull. I was hoping the story would focus on Victoria’s marriage to Albert, their children and just their life together. However, this only focuses on Victoria’s first few years as Queen and her engagement to Albert. The book ends as soon as Albert and she become engaged which was very disappointing to me. The story leading up to the engagement is totally focused on politics and Victoria’s relationship with Lord Melbourne. As I was reading I kept waiting for Albert to make an appearance and something interesting to happen but nothing ever did. The overall writing style wasn’t bad just, again, very dull. This book might be historically accurate but I don’t feel I really learned anything about Queen Victoria except that she was really short, whiny and loved her dog. I definitely wasn’t entertained.

I don’t have a better book about Victoria to recommend since this is the first one I’ve read about her but now I’m going to be on the hunt for a good one. If you have any suggestions please let me know! Thanks for reading and have a great day!