As a huge Wolf Hall/Bring Up the Bodies fan, I was really looking forward to reading Joanne Limberg's A Want of Kindness about Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch but unfortunately for me the book did not live up to this billing. I enjoyed discovering the historical story of a lesser known monarch but I found the book quite heavy going in parts and frequently had to refer to the Dramatis Personae to remember who was who and who they related to. I found the narrative style to be quite detached so I never felt that I properly understood Anne, for example, I couldn't understand the dramatic breakdown in the relationship with her Stepmother (other than the Catholic question). The first half of the book was also rather episodic and slow going and generally I felt that Joanne Limberg expected a better historical knowledge of period than I have and sometimes the narrative was too subtle for me to pick up on all the implications. The second half of the book was more engaging and I really did think that Joanne Limberg conveyed the enormous sadness that Anne must have felt over her lost children, miscarriages and stillbirths. I could not believe that she died childless after a lifetime of constant pregnancies/births and found it truly heartbreaking when her son, William, Duke of Gloucester died so suddenly when he seemed to have overcome health problems to become a healthy young man. The relationship between Anne and her sister Mary was also well drawn and a 'want of kindness' is certainly an apt description of the relationship between the toe woman in their adult life. The book certainly provided food for thought and gave me insight into the life of a lesser known monarch.
This review is of an advance reading copy, received from Realreaders.co.uk