The publisher Harper Collins describes “Mrs Queen Takes the Train”
[it] wittily imagines the kerfuffle that transpires when a bored Queen Elizabeth strolls out of the palace in search of a little fun, leaving behind a desperate team of courtiers who must find the missing Windsor before a national scandal erupts.
I was fascinated by the idea and the first few pages from the Queen’s point of view were very intriguing. And I have to say I kind of enjoyed this story, even though I took a break from it for a few weeks, because I seemed to just not be in the mood for it. The idea of the Queen “out in the real life” was and is a very entertaining one and this book certainly has a few hilarious moments.
When I picked it up a few days ago and finished reading it I realized what bothered me in the first place. For one thing there were too many points of views for my taste. There are 4 courtiers plus 2 kind of outsiders and the Queen herself, which means the focus switches between seven different persons. And while it might work in a novel with 1000+ pages it seemed too many in this story. Just when I was about to get accustomed to the “voice” telling the story, it switched to another person. It also made it hard to start caring about all the individual characters.
I also had difficulties to follow some of the flashbacks to events prior to the current ones. There were quite a few of those and to me that made the whole narrative kind of disjointed. I started reading a new chapter (or paragraph) and at first never knew if it was taken place in the past or the current.
Which all in all leads to a just ★★★☆☆ rating from me.