TLC Book Tours Book Review: Mrs Queen Takes The Train

About Mrs. Queen Takes the Train

• Paperback: 384 pages

• Publisher: Harper Perennial (October 8, 2013)

Buy: Amazon

Blurb: After decades of service and years of watching her family’s troubles splashed across the tabloids, Britain’s Queen is beginning to feel her age. An unexpected opportunity offers her relief: an impromptu visit to a place that holds happy memories—the former royal yacht, Britannia, now moored near Edinburgh. Hidden beneath a skull-emblazoned hoodie, the limber Elizabeth (thank goodness for yoga) walks out of Buckingham Palace and heads for King’s Cross to catch a train to Scotland. But a colorful cast of royal attendants has discovered her missing. In uneasy alliance a lady-in-waiting, a butler, an equerry, a girl from the stables, a dresser, and a clerk from the shop that supplies Her Majesty’s cheese set out to bring her back before her absence becomes a national scandal. Comic and poignant, fast-paced and clever, Mrs Queen Takes the Train tweaks the pomp of the monarchy, going beneath its rigid formality to reveal the human heart of the woman at its center.

Review: Mrs Queen Takes The Train is Buckingham Palace meets Upstairs Downstairs with a touch of Blackadder comedy thrown in.

Anyone with a love for the monarchy and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will have to love this book. William Kuhn paints Queen Elizabeth as the sharp minded lady that she is, but he brings her down to earth. She's slowing down and still trying to keep up with the times when all the things she loves and meant so much to her have been taken away.

In a few words, William Kuhn turns Her Majesty into your great grandmother, or any other 87 year old lady you might know.

You get to know servants from all aspects of the Queen's life, from Renee at the Mews, to Mrs MacDonald who is her dresser and a lady in waiting to name but a few.

When one day The Queen decides she's not feeling the thing and goes off in search of some Cheddar for her horse, Elizabeth and then decides to go see the royal yacht Britannia in Scottland, well the whole palace is turned upside down.

This isn't a book to be taken seriously. This is a book to sit down, relax and have a good chuckle with. It isn't meant to be a portrait of the Queen but rather something humorous. If you check your sense of humor at the door, you probably won't get it, but if you like a little bit of silly fun in your life this is definitely a must read book!

I can't begin to say how much I loved this story!

Rating: 5 flowers