random thoughts on Elizabethan historical fiction

[tempestsarekind]

So one of the things my mother got me for Christmas is a book called Legacy by Susan Kay. She picked it up at a thrift store, and she bought it because my mother will buy me pretty much any book she finds in a thrift store if it has fairies or Queen Elizabeth on the cover. (There is a reason I own seven editions of A Midsummer Night's Dream--though

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[lareinenoire]

I read Legacy years ago (mainly because Susan Kay also wrote my favourite retelling of The Phantom of the Opera), and my final impression was that it was fairly good, but that it was obvious that this was her first novel.

As far as Elizabethan fiction that isn't a mystery...there's a novel I keep seeing by Patricia something-or-other called The Firedrake's Eye that I want to say is Elizabethan fantasy. One of my favourites is Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove, an AU history based on 'what if the Spanish Armada won in 1588', and while Elizabeth only features as a supporting character, it's a fantastic book. Oh, and A Dead Man in Deptford by Anthony Burgess. Kit Marlowe-centred and brilliantly written. He manages Elizabethan dialogue as well.