Alison Weir and Historical Fiction

I’ve previously read two non-fiction offerings from Alison Weir, the British historian and writer: Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life and The Lady in the Tower. Both were simply amazing.

I decided to take advantage of the Borders going out of business sale (give me a second to cry here) and pick up some of Weir’s historical fiction. I bought The Lady Elizabeth, which is about the early life of Queen Elizabeth I, from just after her mother’s execution to when she took the throne.

I’m only 62 pages into the novel, but it’s clear already that Weir’s talents do not lie in creative writing. At least not the historical fiction genre.

British historian and author Alison Weir

I’m terribly disappointed. After reading Weir’s non-fiction, I expected better. It’s painful reading. Her attempts at period dialect fall flat and feel forced. The story is too detailed, year by painful year, and does not flow.

I can’t say Weir is not a good writer — a great writer! Because she truly has a talent for making the lives and events of history sing as though they’re happening at that moment and not hundreds of years ago. She does this amazingly with her nonfiction. She should leave the fiction, though, to others. It isn’t her forté.

I’m seriously considering not continuing on with this book. It’s a good account of Elizabeth’s early life, in a historical sense. But I’m not enjoying it at all.

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