Access Today Mrs Queen Takes The Train Formulated By William Kuhn Compiled As EText

to come clean Mrs. Queen Takes The Train has been on my toread shelf since I won it on GR a few years back my apologies and after trying to read it a couple of times now, I just could not a get into it.
The book arrived marked "uncorrected manuscriptnot for sale", . perhaps that put me off too, . . am not sure. Anyway, I have not entered a giveaway since feeling I should have given it my all, originally published at sitelinkThe Bookwyrm's Hoard,

I cant remember where I first stumbled across a mention of Mrs Queen Takes the Train, but the premise grabbed me immediately: Queen Elizabeth, who is feeling a bit depressed, decides to visit the decommissioned royal yacht Brittania, scene of many happy memories.
The yacht is moored in Scotland, so The Queen slips out incognito, makes her way with a strangers assistance to Kings Cross, and boards the night train to Edinburgh.
She is followed by her equerry, her butler, her dresser, one of her ladiesinwaiting, a stablehand from the Palace Mews, and the young man who took her to the railway station, all of them concerned for her safety and eager to return The Queen to the Palace without incident.


Given the description, I expected a lighthearted and possibly madcap adventure, Instead I discovered a thoughtful literary novel which moves back and forth in time, exploring each characters life and experiences before finally settling into a more sequential narrative in the last part of the book.
Kuhn portrays each character and the sometimes uneasy relationships between them with sympathy and sensitivity, By the end of the book, I felt as though they had all, from the sales clerk to The Queen, become my friends, And even though the book is light on action, it moves toward a very satisfying conclusion,

FCC disclosure: I borrowed this from the public library,

Read more of my reviews at sitelinkThe Bookwyrms Hoard,
Trite. Shallow. Silly.

I wanted to like this book, I was on a streak of anglophile reading, and I was looking for something light and charming, But this book was devoid of charm and humor which is a cardinal sin when writing this type of book, Making the Queen a bit of an out of touch, dithering old lady just seemed silly to me, not funny, Characters in the book reference both the movie The Queen and the book Uncommon Reader, Both works that are superior to this one,

For the most part the book focuses on members of the Queens staff that have decided to go fetch her when she takes a holiday and toddles off on her own in search of the yacht Brittania.
Here is where the novel just does nothing for me, It is extremely obvious as soon as we are introduced to the characters exactly who is going to fall in love with who, who is going to become friends, and that somehow all of them being thrown together will magically solve their problems of course the author makes sure to give each a problem/hangup that they must resolve by the end of the novel

Its just all so formulaic and pat.
I forced myself to finish but I knew I was underwhelmed by the firstpages,

I will say there is an audience for this book, If you like the 'At Home in Mitford' novels this may be for you, On the other hand if you are looking for the wit and satire of Nancy Mitford I don't think it will,
To an unrepentant Anglophile like me, "Mrs, Queen Takes the Train" was as refreshing as a strong cup of tea on a cold day, While it's true that the device the author uses to facilitate and prolong the Queen's escape will strain the bounds of credulity for any reader, thankfully the more you read the less it matters.
This is thanks to strong character development by the author, so that even if certain parts of the story seem ludicrous, you'll want to keep reading until the end to see what happens to your favorite characters.


The author goes off on many tangents from the main storyline, often using flashbacks to fill in backstory, this was mildly confusing at best, and completely annoying at worst.
Fortunately,the main story of the Queen's day out was so delightful that taken as a whole this novel is the perfect confection!
Things have gotten in a rut for Elizabeth, Queen of England, and the prime minister has just told her that her royal train is to be sold.
Frustrated by the unfairness of it, after all she has lost her plane and yacht, she decides to go somewhere where she has spent some happy times.
She decides to visit the royal yacht, Britannia, moored near Edinburgh, Not used to travelling on her own and disguised by a skull and crossbones hoodie, Elizabeth sets off to do that,
It's very humorous how the Queen makes the journey through a series of haphazard actions and a lack of understanding how the world works without attendants.
She runs into a wide variety of people and, at times, with an impervious manner she makes the train ride to Scotland,
Meanwhile, her loyal attendants set out to find her before the media gets wind of her disappearance, The book is mainly about them and how they got in service and the subsequent search for the Queen, It's a lot of fun discovering how the palace keeps track of the linen and various other household tasks, Most of all, it's fun to think of the Queen doing yoga, trying to work a computer and sneaking cheese to feed her horses, I doubt it's real but how fun it is to think it might be, /

I was EXCITED to read this novel, I EXPECTED to like this novel, I WANTED to like this novel, I did not like this novel,

If youll pardon the seasonal analogy, this book was like being given a beautifully wrapped Christmas present, only to open it up and find socks :

First, you have to understand something about me.
I am a rabid Anglophile, If I am reading a romance set in Miami where the heroine is strutting around in a bathing suit, hohum, But put that same heroine in a crinoline or have her sipping weak tea at Almack's, then I am very happy indeed, I have read hundreds, if not thousands, of books having to do with anything English way too many to recreate for my GoodReads read list, and have never tired of the subject matter.
So I was very excited when I got this book, I bumped it to the top of my toread list, put on my Pajamas, and settled in my most comfortable chair, I was prepared to be delighted!

What a disappointment! My main problem with the book is the construction and the pacing, There is so much flitting back and forth between several characters, their past and present, And there is so much backstory on all of these characters! I was not in the least interested in their stories, except as to how they related to the Queen.
I did not care about Luke and Andy, I did not care about Rajiv and his Eton years, I did not care about Rebecca and the guy she met at the rally.
The best part of the book for me was when the Queen interacted withstrangers on the train, Ahh, I thought, THIS is what I want to read about, I read happily for several pages, then BAM / WHOOSH, I was suddenly reading backstory about The Marquess, Annes nephew,

I took some notes while reading, Here are some of them:
Wow, where did this conversation come from
Damn, this book jumps all over the place,
This could be a good story, but the author is mangling it
Why did Luke and Andy become such fast friends so quickly Why do I even care
Ok, the beginning of this book was very poorly constructed, but now that I know all of the main players, the story is moving along apace.
Too bad the introduction of characters was handled so clumsily,
Damn, were back to all the random bouncing back and forth between the characters and their backstories, ENOUGH!

To try and be fair, a small part of the problem may have been that I read this on my Nook, There was double spacing between every paragraph, and there was never a change of format to indicate that there was a change of story, It was still just the same double spacing until you came to a new "Part", I must say it was very jarring, and hard to ascertain where you were in the story at any given time,

But I do applaud the author for coming up with an interesting plot that is not the typical cookie cutter story, Also, the book appears to be well researched and reasonably well thought out, Some effort was expended here, For those reasons, Ill bump up mystar rating to a/rounded up tosince GR does not allow/stars, This book was absolutely phenomenal, I honestly never wanted it to end! It's such a clever, wellwritten story that one minute will be pulling at your heart strings, and the next minute will have you laughing out loud.
I grew so attached to the characters, particularly to the members of The Queen's staff/household, The inclusion of my favorite Shakespeare play, Henry V, was also a really nice touch, Really good read for any fellow Anglophiles out there! Now all we need is a sequel, because I'm quite sad to leave these characters behind and I'd love to see what adventures they and The Queen could get up to next! This was a book that I wanted to love the Queen escapes the Palace and takes a trip! but it was such a mess that I had to abandon it a quarter of the way through.
I had hoped it would be like "The Uncommon Reader" by Alan Bennett, a book I love and have read multiple times, but "Mrs Queen" jumps all over the place and introduces so many side characters and makes such a muddle of the story that I didn't have the patience to see if it got any better.
Based on some GR friend reviews, it doesn't, But maybe you will like it more, Curl up with a cuppa, watch the snow fall and prepare to be delighted,

It's not a must read, or even a very good read, it was just a nice simple tale for a nice simple day.


god save the queen and her train, Feeling down, Elizabeth II impulsively sets off for Leith to see the Royal Yacht, disguised just enough in a hoodie to see London without the streets being cleared and without a filter between her and her people.
As palace staff begin to realize the magnitude of her disappearance, they give chase, leading a sixperson political, ethnic and class crosssection of multiculturalst century Britain who believe their only commonality to be loyalty to the Queen to discover deep connections and sympathy for one another.
Without being saccharine and silly, Kuhn reproduces what I'd guess The Queen would sound like making polite conversation about Dungeons and Dragons with a nosepierced, lagerdrinking hooligan, and that all this comes together at an Old Vic production of Henry V actually made me cry although this is not an insurmountable benchmark.
This is an affectionate valentine to anglophiles, Well this was a really delightful little find, I can not remember which of my friends recommended this to me, but thank you anyway,

It is a sweetly heartwarming tale of a few fictitious days in the life of the modern monarch, And I will add here that I am no dyed in the wool monarchist, not by a

long shot, Oh how I wish that this was a true mini biography, It brings to us an elderly lady who has always done her duty and now finds herself reflecting that she is not really appreciated for that, nor content to keep on.


A wonderful read for a rainy day, when nothing was so important and pressing that I had to put it down and get on with real life.
The cast of unlikely characters that all come together for the common goal is fun, but each has a story of their own that surfaces as the tale develops.
I did feel a little let down in the final chapter when everyone, except the queen, was perfectly paired and it felt like a bit of sickly sweet happily ever after.
However, I now think that William Kuhn used this to cleverly highlight the solitary state of the queens position and her strength,

I really really hope that at some stage in the future I will read that the queen actually is a practitioner of yoga, that would make my day.
This was a book club selection, so I had no choice but to read it, What a surprise! I expected it to be rather trite, but found it instead to be quite touching,

The Queen, feeling melancholy, essentially wanders off on her own to make her way to Scotland to visit the decommissioned Royal Yacht Britannia in the hopes of rekindling some pleasant memories.
Six people, all but one connected with the royal household, pair off in pursuit to retrieve her and ensure her safety, This isn't merely about the Queen "going walkabout", however, We get insight into the lives of each of these people,

Rajiv, a young man of Indian descent, still treated by many as a foreigner despite both he and his parents having been born in Britain, is smitten with Rebecca, who is employed at the royal stables, or Mews, and is far more comfortable in the company of horses than of people.


Luke is a young military officer, assigned to the household as an Equerry, had served in Iraq, is likely suffering from PTSD, and is filled with loneliness, grief, and guilt over the loss of a very close friend.
He is thrown together with William, who has made the royal household his career, and finds himself strongly attracted to Luke as he shepherds him through the crisis of the Queen's disappearance.


Anne, onlyyears younger than the Queen and an outcast from a noble family, is a Lady in Waiting, She is a widow and is estranged from her son, and dreads the prospect of her approaching retirement, In the pursuit she is paired off with Shirley, the Queen's dresser, who for historic family reasons is openly hostile to Ladies in Waiting, For her part, Anne resents the intimacy of the relationship between Shirley and the Queen, The crisis reveals common experiences, and engenders mutual respect,

I find it odd that some people have complained about the details of all these characters as being a distraction from what they think is the point of the story: namely the Queen's unplanned excursion.
They seemed to have a preconceived notion of how the story should go, rather than just letting the story take them where it wants to go.


I enjoyed this story because it touches so sensitively and so well on so many parts of the human condition: aging, sadness, finding purpose, grief, loss, prejudice, and most importantly, love.
It also gave me a new appreciation for Shakespeare's Henry V, .