The Tower
A Novel
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2.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A New Yorker Best Book of the Year • A bold, feminist debut novel, reimagining Mary, Queen of Scots’s darkest hour, when she was held hostage in a remote Scottish castle with a handful of loyal women while plotting a daring escape to reclaim her country and her freedom.
"Such a vivid, visceral read, you feel you’re locked in the tower alongside the characters, acting out a royal family drama. I am moved and impressed." --Tracy Chevalier, New York Times bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring
Scotland, 1567. A pregnant Mary, Queen of Scots is dragged out of her palace by rebel lords and imprisoned in the isolated Lochleven Castle, an ancient fortress surrounded by a vast lake. Her infant son and heir, James, has been captured by her enemies.
Accompanying Mary are two inconspicuous serving women: observant, ambitious Jane and romantic, quick-tempered Cuckoo, who endeavor to keep their mercurial mistress company while sharing the space of a claustrophobic room over the course of their eleven-month forced stay. Their hosts want them dead. They'll settle for Mary's abdication.
After Mary reluctantly surrenders her throne, her closest friend, the reserved, devoted Lady Seton, is permitted to join the captive women. Against the odds, as they hatch a perilous getaway plan, the four women form a bond that transcends class and religion, and for Jane and Seton, becomes something even deeper. At the center of it all is Mary--calculating, charming, brave, and unbowed. Flora Carr's thrilling, feverish debut is a celebration of resilience, a meditation on the meaning of power, and a testament to the unshakeable strength of female friendship, starring one of history's most charismatic leaders.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Experience the innermost thoughts of a fascinating and beloved figure in this historical fiction debut. Held captive in the miserable and dank Lochleven Castle in Scotland with a small group of ladies-in-waiting, Mary, Queen of Scots is just trying to survive. Captured and imprisoned at 24 and forced to sign abdication papers, what gets her through it all is the bond she shares with three of her women courtiers—her chambermaids Jane and Cuckoo and her aristocratic friend Lady Seton—as they scheme and plot and live amidst these difficult circumstances. Author Flora Carr’s impressive reimagining of popular history is incredibly compelling, all of it written in gorgeous, cinematic prose. Despite the political machinations happening around them, the thrust of the story rests in the characters’ complex emotions as they navigate everything from loyalty and jealousy to deadly intrigue. Fans of Lauren Groff and Philippa Gregory will love this intimate portrayal of one of history’s most iconic women.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Carr's lush debut chronicles the imprisonment of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587), following a coup by rebel lords. Recently married to her third husband and several months pregnant after he raped her, Mary is rowed from Edinburgh to Lockleven in 1567 to be held in a castle belonging to her father's mistress. At her side are two chambermaids: Jane, a native of Scotland, and Cuckoo, who, like Mary, is originally from France. The two women are devoted to their queen and attempt to lighten her spirits through the first difficult months of her imprisonment, including her miscarriage, forced abdication, and severe illness. Tension mounts with the arrival of Lady Seton, Mary's closest friend, as the three women vie for the queen's devotion. Further drama ensues after Cuckoo has sex with a lute player and the women smuggle him out of their chamber by dressing him in women's clothes, an act of subterfuge that inspires Mary's climactic escape. Adding to the gripping plot is Carr's successful portrayal of the women's shared determination—driven by "memories as though they are prayers"—to recapture the kingdom. It amounts to a rousing and lyrical epic.
Customer Reviews
The Tower, a novel
Is just that, a work of fiction using real people and twisting the real story for her own purpose. Sad that the author who incorrectly spells Mary Seaton, Mary Seton didn’t realize that family still exists and might be insulted by these imaginings. Mary Seaton was not retired at Lothleven but returned to the Queen as her lead Lady in Waiting, companion, hairdresser, confidante, Maid of Honour and basically her executive assistant and continued to do time for 15 years including at Fotheringhay until she fell ill. Queen Mary asked Mary Seaton to leave her a few weeks before her execution as her health was failing and she did not want her best friend to have to see the execution. What follows is an excerpt from online. Scottish Heritage Societies use the correct spelling of Seaton and attribute the famous skull watch and other jewellery to have been given to Lady Mary Seaton by the Queen as gifts.….Neither was Mary Seaton having a lesbian affair with Jane Kennedy, a chambermaid, just ridiculous and rude. Lady Seaton was a Scottish Royal peer and devoted to the Queen and was heterosexual and she certainly would find it far beneath her to have an affair with a chamber maid which is the lowest class and is just that, her job is to hold the elbow of the Queen while she uses the chamber pit and then discards the contents of the chamber pot, classy right? I am in the Seaton bloodline and find this book appalling, incorrect, insulting and rude. Complete rubbish.
Read this….a much better accounting….
By standing at a window, dressed in the queen's clothes, she gave Mary time to slip out of the castle, and escape across the loch in a rowing boat. Later, when Mary fled to even more onerous imprisonment in England, Seton was permitted to join her, and spent 15 years incarcerated in the gloomy series of castles where Mary wore her life away.
In 1570 Seton's mother wrote to her, and was apprehended by the King's Party, who sought to banish her from Scotland for communicating with Mary's household. Elizabeth intervened, requesting forbearance “if the cause be no greater” than writing to her daughter.
By 1583, even Seton's devotion and health were tried by the long imprisonment, and she was given leave to retire to a French convent at Rheims. Seton lived on to see her mistress's son inherit the crown of England, before dying in 1615. She was buried in the convent she had dwelt in for more than 30 years. Were her last thoughts of the charismatic queen she had served so faithfully, or did it all seem a distant dream?