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Book Summary and Reviews of Heretic Queen by Susan Ronald

Heretic Queen by Susan Ronald

Heretic Queen

Queen Elizabeth I and the Wars of Religion

by Susan Ronald

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  • Published:
  • Aug 2012, 368 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Elizabeth's 1558 coronation procession was met with an extravagant outpouring of love. Only twenty-five years old, the young queen saw herself as their Protestant savior, aiming to provide the nation with new hope, prosperity, and independence from the foreign influence that had plagued her sister Mary's reign. Given the scars of the Reformation, Elizabeth would need all of the powers of diplomacy and tact she could summon.

Extravagant, witty, and hot-tempered, Elizabeth was the ultimate tyrant. Yet at the outset, in religious matters, she was unfathomably tolerant for her day. "There is only one Christ, Jesus, one faith," Elizabeth once proclaimed. "All else is a dispute over trifles." Heretic Queen is the highly personal, untold story of how Queen Elizabeth I secured the future of England as a world power. Susan Ronald paints the queen as a complex character whose apparent indecision was really a political tool that she wielded with great aplomb.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Ronald deftly pulls together a vast amount of historical research into a compelling narrative that's essential reading." - Publishers Weekly

"An illuminating portrait of the 25-year-old woman who led England through religious and political crises with diplomacy, vision and pure force of will." - Kirkus Reviews

"Moving from adventures on the high seas to the wars of religion that plagued sixteenth-century England, Ronald serves up a worthy sequel to The Pirate Queen... Meaty history wrapped in a palatable biographical format." - Booklist

This information about Heretic Queen was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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More Information

Born and raised in the United States, Susan Ronald has lived in England for more than twenty-five years. She is the author of The Pirate Queen, The Sancy Blood Diamond, and France: Crossroads Of Europe. Ronald owns a film production company and is a screenwriter and film producer.

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