Don’t you love it when the titles tell you EXACTLY what the book is about?
Well, I do. Especially when it comes to non-fiction.
This book is exactly what it says on the tin, a look at sex, love, and marriage in the Elizabethan Age. Featuring lots of primary resources and excerpts from diaries, letters, and writings of the age this book dives into what the romantic side of Elizabethan England entailed.
And honestly, it’s fascinating. This isn’t an era of licentiousness that is often portrayed in Puritan literature but a bright, sensual, and much more liberal world. The author shows the good and the bad and tries very hard not to make judgement calls Unfortunately, that approach sometimes backfires because there isn’t enough context or explanation given – especially considering that Elizabethan syntax, vocabulary, and writing style are very different from our own.
This is not a book for a casual reader. It can be difficult to read and I found that I had to take it in bits in order to make sure I was fully understanding things.
Ultimately, this book is a valuable resource for an author setting their books in the time and for Tudor England scholars.
I enjoyed reading it despite some difficulty so it gets:
Four stars
If this is your jam, you can get it here.
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I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley
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