Heather B. Moore sets her book, In the Shadow of a Queen, in the time of Queen Victoria. The novel is based on the life of Victoria’s fourth daughter and sixth child, Princess Louise, using original sources research. The princess has a reputation of being the most beautiful and most talented child of Victoria and Albert. Her father’s death plunges her mother into observing perpetual mourning and establishing protocols for her children. An almost nonexistent social life for them becomes included in these restrictions. The daughters, in turn by ages, serve as secretaries to their mother until their marriages. Finally, it becomes Louise’s turn.
The drama as Louise tries to find time from these secretarial duties to paint and sculpt, activities frowned on by her mother as inappropriate for a woman, is only exceeded with the drama of finding her a suitable marriage. Marriage concerns range between the royalty status of the prospective grooms or the lack thereof and Louise’s own personal choices. Battles ensue between the two strong-willed women over these issues and over Louise’s engagement into women’s rights in a way not often seen in that time. Louise finds herself caught up in her own personal conflict between doing those things important to herself and in caring for her mother’s feelings. The queen’s concession of her forming a friendship with Sybil Grey brings a confidant that will not report everything she says and does back to Victoria.
I recommend reading the notes in the back matter of each chapter as it is finished on the actual history. Some of the most improbable parts of the novel are the truth. Other interesting back matter items give additional information about Princess Louise and her husband John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne. This is a book for those enamored by British royalty or those who love historical fiction.