The book is written in three parts. In the first section, “The King’s Daughter,” we find a precocious young girl who wants to live with her father. Elizabeth has been relegated to a residence some distance away. As Henry VIII progresses through one failed marriage after another, his daughter languishes, sad about her mother while yearning for her father’s affection.

Her attempts to forge maternal bonds with Henry’s parade of doomed queens is pure tragedy. Weir paints a sympathetic portrait of a bright, neglected daughter and of a desperate ruler driven to do awful things in his quest for love and a male heir. Henry’s first daughter, Mary, is another royal exile and the source of what little mothering her half-sister, Elizabeth, receives.

In part two, “The King’s Sister,” Weir charts the transition that occurs when Henry dies. His son, Edward, a mere child and Elizabeth’s half-brother, ascends to the throne. Elizabeth is just entering adolescence, but life spans were shorter then. The average life span for women was 30 years. Many girls were married by the age of 12.

This is where the political maneuvering and intrigue kick into overdrive. Here’s the context: Edward was crowned king because he was the only male heir. His older half-sisters were next in line to succeed him. King Henry created the Church of England because the Catholic Church disapproved of his marital transgressions. His oldest daughter, Mary, was a devout Catholic, yet Edward and Elizabeth adhered to the beliefs of the new religion.

Thus, England was on the brink of becoming another battleground in the Protestant Reformation then sweeping across Europe.

Henry’s widow re-marries a powerful man known as “The Admiral.” Elizabeth goes to live with them. She is barely a teenager. This is the part of the book that is sure to raise some eyebrows. Her stepfather begins to display inappropriate behavior toward Elizabeth. She is flattered. This leads to a sexual awakening somewhat at odds with her later repute as “The Virgin Queen.”

In the final section of the book, “The Queen’s Sister,” Weir depicts the wrenching power struggle between these two half-sisters, “Bloody” Queen Mary and Elizabeth, following the death of King Edward. It plays out like a gigantic chess game with Spain and France making strategic moves to try to tilt the balance of power to try to control the English throne.