On My Nightstand - All The Queen's Players

All The Queen's Players - By Jane Feather

On the back cover:
When she becomes a junior lady of Queen Elizabeth's bedchamber, Rosamund is instructed by her cousin, the brilliant and devious secretary of state Sir Francis Walsingham, to record everything she observes.  Her promised reward: a chance at a good marriage.  But through her brother Thomas, Rosamund finds herself drawn to the forbidden, rough-and-tumble world of theatre, and to Thomas's friend, the dramatic, impetuous playwright Christopher Marlowe.
And then Rosamund meets Will Creighton -- a persuasive courtier, poet, and would-be playwright who is the embodiment of an unsuitable match.

The unsanctioned relationship between Rosamund and Will draws the wrath of Elizabeth, who prides herself on being the Virgin Queen.  Rosamund is send in disgrace to a remote castle that holds Elizabeth's cousin Mary Stuart, the imprisoned Queen of Scots.  Here, Walsingham expects Rosamund to uncover proof of a plot against Elizabeth.  But surely, nothing good can come of putting an artless girl in such lose proximity to so many seductive players and deceptive games.  Unless, of course, Rosamund can discover an affinity for passion and intrigue herself...

My thoughts:
I am not an avid historical fiction reader, but I have read a few and I found this author did not do as good a job as Phillipa Gregory does in some of her books.
There were so many names to keep track of, and often not a lot of story going with each person so it took until I was over half way through to really feel like I knew who was being talked about every time.
The other thing I did not really like about Jane Feather's writing style in this book, is she wrote from every one's point of view.  For the life of me I can't remember what that is called (my Dad is going to kill me along with a few high school English teachers).
I found this style of writing a bit distracting, I kept forgetting that it was not from Rosamund's point of view.

But it was still a good story, Feather seemed to have done her research and tried to be as accurate as possible with what facts she did have.  Once I was half done, I had a really hard time putting it down.

My rating: 3 1/2 out of 5.