The Winter Queen

author: Amanda McCabe
Genre: Harlequin Historical Romance, Elizabethan Era
Grade: C?
TBR Pile Challenge

Lady Rosamund Ramsey is a breathtaking beauty and heir to quite a fine estate. When her parents fear she has fallen prey to the wiles of a gold digger they ship her off to be a lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth. It is the Christmas season, an unusually cold winter and a rather odd time to travel but off Rosamund goes as "punishment" for her "affair". As Rosamund is headed to the court she has an unusual encounter in the woods outside the castle -- a man on skates, mesmerizing in his skill. And then looking up through the gently falling snow he sees her -- a lovely, lush blond seemingly carved out of the very snow around her. Both think of the encounter as a piece of winter enchantment and it becomes etched in their memories regardless of its brevity.

Of course when Rosamund gets to the castle she meets her mystery skater -- Anton, a member of the Swedish delegation from King Eric. Anton has another reason for wanting to be there -- he is half English and has business at Queen Elizabeth's court. The beautiful Lady Rosamund is an unwanted distraction. As the revelry spins into the danger zone Anton and Rosamund skate around the many issues and mysteries at court while finding themselves inevitably drawn together. Surrounded by the lush, glorious celebrations of the holiday season can Anton and Rosamund find love amidst the many intrigues of life at court? When a presence from Rosamund's past makes itself known, will she follow her heart to happiness -- or folly?

This is a romance so of course we know the answers to such questions. The real question is, is this book worth reading? To me, maybe not so much. I struggled to stay focused on the book, finding myself thoroughly disengaged from the characters. Rosamund came across as very young to me and I couldn't help thinking that she needed many years before she would be ready for a real romance. That struck me as ironic since I have been reading a ton of YA romances with characters just her age whom I found to be perfect for the romances they were in. Here is a girl from the past, in a time when wives and mothers were in their teens, and she seems less ready for marriage than the spoiled punks ;-) of my own era. Rosamund's whip lash affections and her inability to pick up some social cues made her seem too young to be sure of her own heart.

Anton was a character from Romance Novel Central. A hardened warrior who was mush in Rosamund's little hand, blah, blah, blah you get the picture. I was disappointed in how his Swedish ancestry seemed to be portrayed as all negative, not worth dwelling on and as a result how little we got to learn of that particular culture. England has been so overdone in historicals, it would have been nice to see another country portrayed. One of the interesting things about history is that the difficulty of travel, the lack of up to the minute media made foreign cultures seem truly foreign. And yet the "foreigness" of the delegations was never addressed and there never seemed to be a cultural clash of any sort.

On the other hand, the festivities were done very well and I did get a good feel for the holiday season. The author interlaced many old Christmas songs into the text, which was fun, and I did get an impression of the kind of parties the Queen was likely to throw. Elizabeth was very much portrayed as we have seen her in other books and I was fine with that -- the book wasn't about her and this wasn't the place to get creative. Her "familiarity" was one of the few real historical markers of the book.

Overall, the book was brief and did not effectively use it's few pages to grab me. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't good either. I would give it a miss unless you really enjoy this period.

Tea: Tea was actually introduced to Europe during Elizabethan times but did not reach English shores until 1657-1660. The Dutch, Russians and Portuguese all knew about it before the British. Wassail and spiced wine were the drinks of this book, maybe go with one of them. Here is a link to a wassail recipe, although I don't think it would have been one drunk back in this day.

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/212/Christmas-in-England-Wassail117252.shtml