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Unicorn's Blood
Unicorn's Blood
Author: Patricia Finney
By the author of Firedrake's Eye: a masterpiece of voice, historical detail, and psychological insight to rival Peter Ackroyd and A. S. Byatt — England in the mid-1580s faced an array of international foes and was torn internally by religious strife. At its center was a slight woman of exceptional intellectual brilliance. Her stat...  more »
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ISBN-13: 9780312200398
ISBN-10: 0312200390
Publication Date: 12/15/1998
Pages: 384
Rating:
  • Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
 14

3.6 stars, based on 14 ratings
Publisher: Picador
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

GowerMeower avatar reviewed Unicorn's Blood on + 179 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Interesting but not very believable historical fiction. If it were shorter probably would have been better.
CozyLover avatar reviewed Unicorn's Blood on + 335 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I typically love novels about Elizabeth I, but I couldn't get into this one at all.
reviewed Unicorn's Blood on + 134 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Pretty Good.... but not one of my favorite historical fiction novels.
reviewed Unicorn's Blood on + 6 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Reall good historical book about stolen diaries, dark secrets, undercover spies, and Tudor politics.
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Readnmachine avatar reviewed Unicorn's Blood on + 1470 more book reviews
Was ever a monarch so beset as Elizabeth I of England? Seldom in her long reign was she not feuding with someone, and few feuds were as bitter or prolonged as the one over the fate of Mary, Queen of Scots. Even after Mary was implicated in an assassination plot in 1568 and sentenced to die for treason, Elizabeth dragged her feet over the signing of the actual warrant for 19 long years, then suddenly relented and signed the document, only to remove from her court many of the councilors who had urged the action, once the execution had taken place.

Patricia Finney has built a complex tale of intrigue around this reversal, basing it on the search for a supposed diary kept by the young Princess Elizabeth, which would have destroyed her as a monarch and a woman.

This densely plotted tale is rife with espionage, double-dealing, turncoat agents, secret codes, hidden passageways, and disgraced clergy. It meticulously sets out pictures of both court life and the desperate struggle for survival of London's poor, rich in detail and developing an all-too-plausible tale of events in Elizabeth's life before she ascended the throne. It even toys with mysticism, assigning some of the narrative to the Virgin Mary, who manages to be almost as interesting as the mortal characters carrying the action.

Readers looking for a court-heavy tale of Tudor lives, loves, and feuds, may be disappointed at the emphasis on spies and double-dealings, while those attempting to winkle out just who among Elizabeth's court was allied with whom may be impatient with a wandering subplot about an unfrocked nun desperate to make a dowry for her great granddaughter. And anyone coming to the novel as a stand-alone is apt to be dismayed that there is an earlier volume, âFiredrake's Eye', which introduces some of the main fictional characters in this tale.

Finney's research is exhaustive, and there are many fascinating details about life at court and among the populace. Finding these nuggets may distract the reader from the fact that the pace is glacial and that there are more characters and subplots than hairs in one of Elizabeth's wigs.
reviewed Unicorn's Blood on + 6 more book reviews
This fiction based on the life of Queen Elizabeth is tasty! Period details, and a level of interpersonal magic made me react viserally.


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