Elizabeth Chadwick has written a wonderful book based on Waltheof Siwardsson, Earl of Huntington and Northampton, and his lady love Judith, niece to William the Conqueror. These are real people and real events and the story is written so well that the reader can actually experience the emotions of the characters.

Ms. Chadwick has written a sequel to this story which should be out this year (2003), and she is currently working on a prequel to The Lords of the White Castle.

In 1067, William the Conqueror has become the King of England and Normandy. To secure his hard-earned throne, he holds hostage many local nobles including the Earl Waltheof Siwardsson of Huntingdon, who remains a noble because he did not fight at Hastings. Shockingly, Waltheof finds he desires William's Norman niece, Judith and even more surprisingly they make a match of it even while treachery lurks behind every niche and cranny.

Two decades later, loyalty has become even more complex as William recently died and his two kingdoms divided between his older sons. Many of the Conqueror's followers believe that the middle son should have received nothing instead of sitting on the Normandy throne. Waltheof's oldest daughter, Matilda marries her father's former squire Simon de Senlis. Matilda and Simon want to live and love in peace, but once again treachery and shifting alliances make life as dangerous if not more so than when her father was an English hostage in a Norman court.

Though the story of William and his sons have been told numerous times few efforts match the thrilling saga provided by Elizabeth Chadwick. The story line focuses on people wanting peace and love yet caught up in an age of immense chaos and turmoil fostered by treachery, hatred and betrayal. Real people and recorded information of the period provide fans with an exciting historical novel that is probably as much factual as fictional, all elements interwoven into a cohesive delightful tale that William readers will cherish.

Harriet Klausner

The Winter Mantle is an excellent book. It was actually one of my favorite by Elizabeth Chadwick. As always, Chadwick, seems to weave factual details into a very engrossing story. I love reading her work. I always feel as though I learn many things about medieval history. I enjoy a great story. The Winter Mantle was a winner.

I have read a lot of real life stories in my time, but to have someone tell about becoming deaf over night and telling it in a posative way really beats other writers hands down. I read it cover to cover and although I was tired and want to say the tears were from that, I know differently. The tears were of laughter and pain. All of which Elizabeth felt many times. Her contrast to the story was a woman named Kiley, boy if Kiley only knew that she was in such good hands all along.

This story is of a woman named Elizabeth with a career and family, that is changed drastically. I enjoyed reading "I Can't Hear You Laughing...Anymore". It put knots in my stomach as I read it chapter for chapter. I think it is a book that everyone should read if you like books based on true stories. I can't wait to see what she comes out with next!

I have not read a book that made me really feel emotions like this one has. Elizabeth AnderHowrad is my new favorite author. She not only told a great story of overcoming her deafness when it was literally overnight. I love the poems she uses in her wroks. The CPR scene started a dramatic beginning and the book never once lets you down.

Truly amazing, I hope to meet her one dya

Good for everyone who ever wanted to tell someone just how much they love them. Kind and loving, it's a sentiment that everyone should want to share with a loved one- child, sibling, parent, friend or whatever. There is no way you'll feel bad after reading this book..

Elizabeth Hickey's nationally award winning video "Children: The Experts on Divorce" contains a scene where a little boy is asked, "So what do you think parents should say to their children when they're going through divorce?" The young man, without hesitation, replies, "They should just tell them that they love them." Armies of mental health practitioners, divorce lawyers and judges know from their experience the wisdom of that little boy's advice.

Elizabeth Hickey's new book, I Love You More Than . . ., offers a beautiful way to deliver this message of love and caring. The story is a conversation between a little girl and her father, part real and part imagined. The photographs, illustrations and text combine to create a moving and powerful message of love between a parent and child.

The book is cleverly constructed to be universally applicable since the family structure of the characters is ambiguous. While father speaks of his love for his daughter, the message is acknowledged "from Mommy, too." The story does not state whether the parents are together, separated, unmarried, married or divorced.

It was heart-warming to share this book with my eleven year old son, Mark. Here are Mark's comments:

The story I Love You More Than . . . walks you through a little girl's dream about how much her father loves her. The beautiful illustrations contribute to the story greatly by giving the reader a picture of the child's wonderful dream. I thought that the photographs were adorable. They reminded me of when I was a toddler and my parents read stories to me. I think that all children and adults will find this story inspiring and touching to the heart.

Unlike fairy tales, this story makes the child whose parents read them this book feel that their parents really love them. I am sure that all kids would enjoy having this book read to them as much as I did. This book is sure to be a classic bedtime favorite.

Mark's responses reflect those of other children and adults who have encountered this book. I Love You More Than . . . conjures warm memories of the best parts of the reader's relationship with his or her parents. These combine in such a positive and gentle way to melt the heart of all parents and help them share the warm glow of their parental love with their children. This book is a treasure. The world is a better place because it is available.

This is a magical book that will take both parent and child on a lovely journey reminding them both of the love they have for each other. The illustrations are done in wonderful detail and will provide lots of opportunity for conversation and expectation during subsequent readings. It is sure to become a favorite with many, especially the Daddy/Daughter combination. I have sent copies to each of my young grandchildren and they all love it!

I decided I wanted to read about great sovereigns of world history, so I made up a short list with a loose definition of 'sovereign': Alfred the Great, Alexander III of Macedon, Julius Caesar, Frederic II, etc..., and, of course, I had to include Queen Elizabeth I. Then I went to the library and was very surprised to find that Paul Johnson wrote a biography of Elizabeth I. I had read two or three other of his more famous books, and I found out this book on Elizabeth I has the same virtues Johnson's writing has in those other books - the swift 'readability' and insight and well-chosen anecdote; the common-sense and understanding of the ways of the world; as-well-as his understanding of the difference between freedom, life and light and tyranny, death and darkness; and also his understanding of which side is better. (It's not always obvious to many human beings, is it...?) And because Johnson treats the themes of Elizabeth's life in their universal light this book is very contemporary. You truly get a sense of her full life to the point where this reader was something approaching emotional at the end. Elizabethan England provides a very charismatic cast of surrounding characters as well. (I'm writing this review a year and a half beyond reading the book, and I'm not going to try to remember all the names beyond Drake and Raleigh and that unfortunate Earl of something... Mary, Queen of Scots as well. Lots of intrigue. Alot of detail. Much about 'affairs of state' and court machinations (he gets inside, in a very interesting way, the world of the royal court as well as the very real-life aspects of running the court and the country including the finances...) The 'real politik' and foreign policy is really as real and contemporary as human nature - which I believe is pretty much the same now as back then... There are many biographies of Elizabeth I in print, but those who know Paul Johnson can probably guess his book is a few notches higher than the pack. It should be back in print...

This is a savvy, insiders bio for all political junkies, and a moving depiction of a human being for the poet in all political junkies. Paul Johnson's understanding of the nature of power and the nature of human nature is surprising and impressive. His subject and the events she deals with and that take place around her are raised to the level of the universal. Even though the piling on of detail can make the reader feel at times like he's walking through a field with mud up to his knees (or she, of course), Mr. Johnson makes up for this by presenting a picture of Elizabethan England that is unusually real. This book (despite its being highly readable) is one of the great twentieth century political biographies.

This is a beautifully designed book. As to what's inside: It contains what too many of her biographers are either too dishonest, too ignorant, or, too afraid to include, i.e. her belief in God and her understanding that her country and her country's people had a unique place and a unique role in carrying out God's plan. Elizabeth I had a complete understanding. It's difficult to write off her accomplishments in learning at such a young age as being merely the result of having royal tutors helping her along. This is what many biographers try to do. There's never been an over-supply of young genius in royal families in any era. More attention, as well, should be paid to her reading. Reading great books has never been a guarantee of anything regarding somebody's understanding of themselves and the world, but it is, without exception, a key ingredient in the education (self-education or otherwise) of everybody who eventually DOES attain a real understanding of themselves and the world. Elizabeth's understanding may have even gone beyond herself and the world around her... These writings are not ideal as a window into her, but there is enough here to work up an impression above the words, and, coupled with a good biography such as the one by Paul Johnson the picture can become very complete.

Queen Elizabeth I of England has had hundreds of books written *about* her, but very few of them allow us to hear what she has to say in her own words. I found this an accessible, well-edited collection, not of *all* her words, but of a very good sample. It includes all of the speeches, prayers and poems she wrote that are available from reliable contemporary sources (as with all famous people, things have been attributed to her that she never wrote). It also includes -- and this is my favorite part -- a selection of her letters; sometimes the replies are also included, as with a series of angry letters she exchanged with King James of Scotland (all the while addressing him as "my right dear brother and cousin"). The documents range from formal speeches to Parliament to the occasional playful, teasing or personal note, such as the one she wrote to Lord Leicester in the Netherlands that begins, "Rob, I am afraid you will suppose by my wandering writings that a midsummer moon hath taken large possession of my brains..." Spelling and punctuation have been modernized, and unusual words have been footnoted, but the words are otherwise unaltered, and the texts are presented in full, sometimes in several versions where they differ significantly. I did find that a basic knowledge of the outline of the events of her life is immensely helpful in understanding who she is addressing and why, which is often mentioned only briefly in the notes. There is a certain amount of theorizing in the book's Preface about the "strategic gendering of Elizabeth's self-representation" -- but the texts really speak for themselves. This is a rare chance to see historical material that's often hard to locate, and an enjoyable chance to be "inside the head" of a fascinating historical person.

Writing a "book" review on a play that one has not read may seem a bit presumptuous. However, my wife and I saw the US premier of this play at Houston's Stages Theater a few weeks ago and can attest that it is some of the finest entertainment we have seen in many a day. I hope that many people will read it, that college English classes will study it, and, most importantly, that numerous theater groups will stage it.

Historical. Hilarious. Poignant. An exhaustive list of appropriate adjectives would exceed Amazon's page limitations.

The play has a large cast of memorable characters including a semi-blind theater seamstress and a bear. The scene is a barn in England in 1601, and Queen Elizabeth seeks diversion from the impending beheading of her lover in the company of William Shakespeare and his band of actors. The dialogue is both scholarly and witty, with many echoes from Shakespeare's plays.

But the driving force for the drama is the point/counterpoint exchanges between "King" Elizabeth, who feels compelled to shirk her womanly feelings for the good of her country and the actor Ned, a 17th century drag-Queen. More than that I will not tell.

See it if you can, but, until it plays in your area, read the book.

In 1601, Queen Elizabeth I was forced by duty to condemn to death a man widely believed to be her former lover. On the night before the execution, she demanded that William Shakespeare's acting troup, The Lord Chamberlain's Men, perform a play to distract her from the heartbreak that would occur in the morning. This much is truth. Timothy Findley takes these historical facts, blends in a few "what if's?" and creates a powerhouse play about men, women, fantasy, death, and ultimately, love.

After a performance of Much Ado About Nothing, Queen Elizabeth goes backstage to talk with the actors, and finds them all mourning the iminent death of the Beatrice of the evening, their terminally ill leading "lady," Ned. Ned has lived all his life as a woman, and does not know how to face his upcoming death with the courage of a man. Elizabeth, by contrast, has had to destroy her feminine side in order to rule England successfully. Realising this, the two strike a bargain: Ned will teach Elizabeth how to be a woman, if she can teach him how to be a man. What follows is a heartbreaking journey of self-discovery in which Elizabeth learns how to mourn, Ned learns how to die with grace and how to live with love, and William Shakespeare finds the greatest play never written.

This is an excellent choice for any Shakespeare fan, and for any lover of theatre. Powerful, enlightening, heartbreaking and uplifting, Elizabeth Rex is an exquisite journey for the heart, with beautiful dialogue, strong characters, and fascinating arguments. A must-read.

Many details, not revealed or available from other sources, bring to life Elizabeth's Court. Great detail in the logistics need to move Elizabeth's court during progress are revealed. Places historical events into the everyday existance of the time. A must for the Elizabethan historian.

This book gives a deep insight into the protocols and systems required in the 16th century to maintain the monarchy in a position of strength while still governing a somewhat turbulent nation.Good research brings life to places, people and events.The wider political problems of Elizabeths reign rightly take second place to the general day to day requirements of a the Tudor nobility to sustain the rigours of court functions by laying heavy demands upon local landowners and their like.A book for those with both a deep and those with a more peripheral interest in Elizabethan history

This book is absolutely great! My toddler loved it. She ended up reading it to me! It is now a beloved addition to her bookshelf. Don't miss out on this one!

This book was the absolute best! My nine month old little boy was entranced. This is the first book that he has let me read from cover to cover without stopping. Then he wants me to read it again. It is the household favorite. Everybody needs a copy! This one will last a lifetime if we don't wear out the pages!

When Sue Doran writes about something you ,the reader, can be assured the result will be an indepth study of her subject matter...no just brush the surface with this writer...Here you will read about the political and social intrigue surrounding Elizabeth I and her courtships.The author focuses on a different approach to the Virgin Queen's trials in trying to govern England and handle the many "would be"and serious suitors.A most interesting and informative book for those interested in history.

This is a unique study which is of equal value to the academic or the interested amateur. For too long Christopher Haig's dated and simplified account of the Virgin Queen's persistent virginity has been allowed to dominate Elizabethan history. Susan Doran takes each of Elizabeth's courtships seriously instead of blindly assuming a grand narrative. Although female historians are relatively new to the public arena, Susan Doran has "the heart and stomach of a man".

This book really showed me the insite on a young bastardized Princess' life. I act in a Renaissance Faire and auitioned for the part of Lady Elizabeth at age 15 and got it. This book really helped me out on how her attitude on life was. It was a wonderfully written book that deserves more credit than it got. I don't recommend this book for young readers, it can be quite complicated at times. After reading this book you will certainly realize that Elizabeth was a truly amazing Princess, Lady and Queen.

I found this to be a wonderful, colorful, imaginative book. The plot was terrific and the characters very well evolved. It gave a thrilling account of the famous Queen Elizabeth's life as a young girl. I would advise it for ages 10 and over.

One of the best-written and most evocative historical novels ever. I first read this when I was twelve, and it is still one of my favorite books. Due to this book, I conceived a passionate admiration for Elizabeth I which I've never lost, as well as an interest in English history that's provided years of fascinating research. (I also fell madly in love with the Lord High Admiral, but that's another story....)