Daughters of the Winter Queen

Daughters of the Winter Queen flows beautifully from one chapter to the next, making it difficult to put down. Goldstone's immersive style of writing is also a winner ... the book is remarkably balanced considering that Goldstone had five intelligent women to discuss ... Daughters of the Winter Queen is a wonderfully compelling read that will interest anyone who is into royal history. Engaging, accessible, fascinating

All About History

'An engaging narrative... vivid and convincing... Goldstone is used to managing the reins of a multi-faceted royal narrative - and, once again, she does it with consummate skill

BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE

Goldstone weaves her way through a turbulent century of civil war, regicide, and revolution to show us, in the search for a Protestant successor to the eventually childless Queen Anne, how Scottish Mary's feisty great-granddaughter Sophia almost became the Queen of England ... Goldstone's forthright and often witty asides keep this complicated story bowling along at a terrific pace ... Lively and well-researched, Daughters of the Winter Queen offers a timely introduction to a turbulent period in Britain's past relations with Europe

New York Times Book Review

Nancy Goldstone presents a fascinating look at the family of Elizabeth Stuart. The tentacles of this extensive family reached across Europe, and the children of the Winter Queen were involved in many of the major events of the seventeenth century. Goldstone skillfully brings to the forefront the central role marriage politics played among noble and royal dynasties, and the granddaughter and great-granddaughters of Mary Queen of Scots emerge as ambitious and skilled negotiators

Johanna Luthman, author of Love, Madness, and Scandal: The Life of Frances Coke Villiers, Viscountess Purbeck

This rich and complex story of a seventeenth-century queen who lost her throne, and her four defiant daughters, is compulsively readable. Combining rigorous research with a vivid writing style, Nancy Goldstone illuminates the women who have often been left in the shadows of history, and reminds us that fascination with royalty is nothing new

Charlotte Gray, author of Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich in the Klondike

The story of how one remarkable woman's drive to survive secured the succession of the British crown to this day ... A great book for history fans seeking illumination on the connections of European royalty

Kirkus Reviews

Ms Goldstone ... is a thrilling narrator of this complicated history. Yet the achievement of a work like this is not merely its command of a vast and dense web of the past, but also its incredible literary merit. Daughters of the Winter Queen is nothing short of page-turning, an exceptional work of scholarship that reads like a favorite novel filled with political intrigue, romantic scandal, and more than one dark-of-night escape. If you are ... desperately awaiting season three of The Crown, you might at least avail yourself in the meantime of this fascinating account of where the queen's royal line began

East Hampton Star

A compulsively readable account of an otherwise unfamiliar royal family. Goldstone writes with knowledge, humour and ease - a masterly storyteller who steers clear of overly academic language. Ideal for amateur Tudor historians who wish to be introduced to a lesser-known yet equally fascinating royal family

Library Journal, starred review

Goldstone relates the eminently readable tale of Elizabeth Stuart, dubbed the Winter Queen, and her four lovely, talented daughters ... The story of these five women, each remarkable for individual reasons and in her own right, both illuminates and is offset by Goldstone's vividly rendered European backdrop

Booklist

This lively, well-researched group biography focuses as much on the mother as on her more famous daughters ... [Goldstone] clearly presents a captivating story with empathy and humour in a relaxed, entertaining, modern voice

Publisher's Weekly