Lawless has done a marvellous job at depicting these women’s lives in an open and clever way which keeps you reading, I thoroughly enjoyed learning about these women and discovering some I had never heard of which makes me want to learn more about them.

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Chicks, Rogues and Scandals

The whole book is full of sad, entertaining and hopeful stories of the experiences of women connected to the crown. They raise questions about the position and status of women in the royal court and do demonstrate that even with the restrictions placed upon women, they could achieve much and played a significant role in many parts of royal life. I love books that emphasise this: women played key parts in culture and politics that can be overlooked too much under the broad generalisation that they were not allowed to do anything important simply because they were women. Lawless proves this was not true in her book, and it is surely a royal romp through history that everyone can enjoy.

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History Lizzie

Erin Lawless writes in a very accessible way. All too often, non-fiction can be a little like reading a school text book, but she really engages her reader. The short chapters, almost conversational in style are both interesting and easily understood. I found it interesting to read about how the Royal lineage has changed down the centuries, whether because of death, or marriage... This an ideal way to begin to find out more about these forgotten women. The book has certainly sparked an interest for me. I was particularly interested in the stories of Eleanor Cobham and Princess Charlotte.

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Random Things Through My Letterbox

As featured in the Bustle article
'7 Royal Books By UK Authors To Read When You've Finished 'The Crown''

Bustle

Overall, I found this book incredibly enjoyable. It is certainly a conversation starter for those who discuss the English monarchy. Lawless has a delightful writing style that feels like you are having a casual history conversation with her. This book is small in size, but it could be the stepping stone for new research for those novice historians who want to write about someone who has been stuck in the shadow for centuries. If you would like to read short stories about royal women who have stayed in the background for a long time, I highly recommend you read “Forgotten Royal Women: The King and I” by Erin Lawless.

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Adventures of a Tudor Nerd

'Book now for autumn – we bring you some of the Cotswolds' latest good reads'

Cotswold Life, October 2019 – words by Candia McKormack

As Featured on
Rambles.NET

Rambles

I thought the writing made information easy to digest and actually had a bit of humour in there too! Making it not only easy to learn, but fun as well. I really enjoyed this and it gave me that little dose of history that I definitely craved. Once again, if you like history, the royal family or learning about royal women, give this book a go!

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Life and Tea Blog

This is another collection of short biographies of women, some probably mythological, but most were very definitely real. As expected some are longer than others, depending on when they lived and how close to the throne they were. Some I already knew a bit about, but I enjoyed learning about new people.

As with most of the vignet type of biographies, that Pen and Sword do so well, the chapters were short but enlightening, with pertinent details of the time and place in which the women lived to anchor them. The writing was fluid, engaging and easy to read and I believe I got through this book in one sitting.

Good place to start any in-depth study of one of the women, to get the outline of their lives.

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Rosemarie Cawkwell, Blogger

Lawless describes her mini-biographies as ‘little tales’ and hopes that they whet her readers’ appetites to know more. They are delightfully written, and I would like to know more about some of them although I suspect that in many cases there is little more to be known.

Historical Novels Review

I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in royal history or women’s history. I would say that it is fascinating to read all the little biographies, with some that you can quite sympathise with.

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UK Historian

Full in review-
A Writer's Blog

A Writer's Blog, July 2019

For someone just dipping their toe, this will make the perfect starting point. The women featured are not the "big ticket names" one would readily associate with this topic - which makes a refreshing change. The stories are your typical vignettes and aren't mean to be anything more, which enabled author Erin Lawless to cover quite a number of women associated with the thrones of England, Scotland and Wales... Overall, the content was spot on; the style was easy and not overly bogged down with facts and figures, which can sometimes be off-putting for someone just starting out; and most of the major career / life high (and low) points were covered.

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Melisende's Library

Featured by

This England, Summer 2019

Fun, light reading.

GoodReads, ConstantReader

3-4 page profiles of 30 lesser-known women from UK history (1300 BC - 1817 AD); this claim is quite accurate, since there was only a scant few I knew of already. Lawless has a way with ancient history, in that it's informed by verbal and written accounts as well as archaeology, but also told in a way that kind of transforms and fleshes out what you know of stories from folklore.

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GoodReads, Kristine Fisher

I thoroughly enjoyed Erin Lawless’ easy-going style of writing and although the stories are rather short, they seem to be correct and well-researched.

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History of Royal Women

The concept of the book is to bring to life those women who get left behind or forgotten about in history. Each chapter gives an overview of their life and achievements, it is not heavily detailed, but it is a great starting point to discover some amazing female characters. What I like about this book is you do not have to read it chronologically, you can jump in at any chapter to read about who intrigues you the most.

Often books like this tend to focus on England, but Erin covers ladies from Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and Germany. It also spans a broad timeline, so there truly is something for everyone's interests.

From reading this book i have discovered some amazing characters whom I am definitely going to research further, One notable woman that stood out to me was Grace O'Malley, a kick-ass pirate queen from Ireland who lived during the reign of Elizabeth I - need I say more?

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GoodReads, Laura Rowley

Forgotten Royal Women was a well-written, well-researched, thoroughly enjoyable read. This book offered such a great selection of lesser known but still utterly fascinating royal women who lived throughout some thrilling and fascinating historical times... This book is pack full of kick-ass, intelligent and powerful women that completely deserve there place within history! I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about some extremely important and sassy women within history.

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Where There's Ink There's Paper, Lauren Gent

This is the most wonderful surprise of a book. These royal women, some of whom I’ve not heard of, some I have, are all neatly explained in these tight short chapters. I found most of them to be our first feminists, most of them strong women. They all lived in interesting times. There’s AElfthryth, pronounced Alf-frith, who had King Edward in 978, murdered, so that her son could become King. And there are many similar tales about 29 other women. My favorite is Princess Charlotte. All are fascinating and all are worth reading about. I loved this book! And I could read 30 more stories of history’s forgotten women!

Ellie Potts Barrett, Freelance

Listed in 'New Releases'

Berkshire Life, May 2019

A superb book.

Books Monthly

This is a really great introduction to some lovely historical figures that, as the title suggests, tend to be forgotten about. I highly recommend this read, especially during Women’s History Month!

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The Creative Historian

Article: 5 forgotten queens and princesses of Scotland as featured by

The Scotsman (online), 1st April 2019 - words by Alison Campsie

You feel yourself drawn into the lives of the fascinating women and living and laughing or fiercely seething beside them... a book to read for the heck of it, for fun, it’s a fascinating little book and I did enjoy it very much.

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The Medieval Library