The Faerie queens

[bibliogramma]

Midnight Never Come, Marie Brennan.

It’s 1554 and Mary Tudor wears the English crown. Her sister Elizabeth lies in the Tower, expecting at any moment to hear the news that her death warrant has been signed. To preserve her life and gain her throne, Elizabeth makes an alliance with another would-be queen, Invidiana, who seeks rulership over all the faerie of England. They swear to help each other to their respective thrones – but where Elizabeth is the true queen of England, Invidiana is at heart a usurper. Though affairs may appear to go well in Elizabeth's court, Invidiana's Onyx court becomes a place of fear and corruption, and the pact between the two queens, which now keeps an unfit queen on her throne just as surely as it originally brought a fit queen to hers, will be challenged by a young courtier from Elizabeth’s world, and a secret agent with mixed loyalties from Invidiana’s court.

As I’ve mentioned before, there’s something that’s just so thematically right about bringing Faerie to Elizabeth’s court, and Marie Brennan has written a new and interesting variation on a theme that’s as old as Spenser and Shakespeare.