{"id":1288,"date":"2014-07-28T09:43:54","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T13:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mayliang.us\/?p=1288"},"modified":"2014-07-28T09:43:54","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T13:43:54","slug":"book-review-in-the-time-of-the-poisoned-queen-by-paul-doherty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/?p=1288","title":{"rendered":"Book review:  In the Time of the Poisoned Queen by Paul Doherty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a style=\"float: left; padding-right: 20px;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/19267344-in-time-of-the-poisoned-queen\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/d.gr-assets.com\/books\/1386440545m\/19267344.jpg?ssl=1\" alt=\"In Time of the Poisoned Queen (Nicholas Segalla)\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/19267344-in-time-of-the-poisoned-queen\">In Time of the Poisoned Queen<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/36619.Paul_Doherty\">Paul Doherty<\/a><\/p>\n<p>My rating: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/show\/1009100373\">3 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I have concluded that I like the concept of the Nicholas Segalla mysteries better than I like the mysteries themselves. &#8220;In the Time of the Poisoned Queen&#8221; discusses the mystery of whether Queen Mary of England died a natural death or was poisoned and, if poisoned, who poisoned her. Mary&#8217;s death was, of course, inextricably intertwined with the English succession and whether her half-sister, Elizabeth (a Protestant) would succeed her or whether a Catholic heir (possibly Mary, Queen of Scots) would be named. It was a time of great instability and uncertainty, which makes for fascinating storytelling.<br \/>\nNicholas Segalla, a mysterious man who apparently cannot die, involves a historian, Ann Dukthas, in his story of how his investigation of Mary&#8217;s then-sickness proceeded and what conclusions he drew. The story is well done with well-conceived characters.<br \/>\nI take issue only because this is a period of history I&#8217;m interested in. The author revisits the issue of Elizabeth&#8217;s paternity (was she truly the daughter of Henry VIII or was Anne Boleyn unfaithful?). I found the author&#8217;s conclusion unpersuasive, which colored my ability to enjoy the book.<br \/>\nThat being said, I do enjoy the underlying premise of this series. The writing, while a bit overwrought at times, is always about an interesting time period, and the books are quite enjoyable.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/list\/1396812-may\">View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Time of the Poisoned Queen by Paul Doherty My rating: 3 of 5 stars I have concluded that I like the concept of the Nicholas Segalla mysteries better than I like the mysteries themselves. &#8220;In the Time of the Poisoned Queen&#8221; discusses the mystery of whether Queen Mary of England died a natural death [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[40],"tags":[336,115,223,108,224],"class_list":["post-1288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-books","tag-historical-mysteries","tag-in-the-time-of-the-poisoned-queen","tag-mysteries","tag-paul-doherty"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p23QXm-kM","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1289,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions\/1289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}