I found her voice, in all three books to be authentic and believable. Using her courage to survive and her wits to confound those who despised her, this young woman became one of the greatest monarchs the world has ever seen. She spends the book reflecting on the important, defining moments of her childhood as well as many pivotal events from her long and glorious reign. Just Flesh and Blood brings us to the end of Elizabeth’s reign and life. She appears frequently on The Drum & Today Extra. Her first novel for adults, The Mother, is a bestseller.

A monarch who had to know her own mind in public, but was full of doubts and questions in private. She has published thirteen books, including a trilogy of YA novels about Elizabeth Tudor Just a Girl, Just a Queen and Just Flesh & Blood, a memoir Plain Speaking Jane, and most recently, Accidental Feminists the life story of women over 50.

The ultimate act of domestic violence in fact.Ĭaro paints a very human queen, full of desires, impulses and incredible strength of will. The unwanted daughter of an executed queen, she endured the perils of her childhood to take the throne as Queen of England. Caro explores the life-long impact on Elizabeth to have lost her mother at so young an age and in such horrific circumstances, at the wishes of her father. Her Elizabeth is based on facts and known history, but she imagines what it must have been like to be this lone woman, in power, surrounded my men trying to manipulate her and use her for their own purpose. I hope she helps young readers new to her story in the way she helped me when I was a girl in search of a hero. Whatever her mistakes and cruelties – and she was a monarch of her times so they were many – she proved to me when I most needed the proof that women could lead, they could wield power at least as well as any man, and they could do so on their own. Her existence and commanding presence in history has always mattered to me. I want to express my gratitude and admiration to Elizabeth Tudor herself. I’m sure that Caro must get asked all the time, why Elizabeth? In her acknowledgements at the back of Just Flesh and Blood, she says,

Just a Girl by Jane Caro