With all due respect to my very intelligent, Ivy-League-educated mother, I didn’t enjoy this book as much as she did. Although the story line held my interest, it left me with the feeling that I’d been cheated of the full story of an extraordinary woman.

The heroine in A Woman of Passion is Bess of Hardwick, an actual historical figure from Elizabethan England. Bess started with nothing and eventually became the wealthiest woman in England besides the Queen. She married four times and each marriage brought more wealth and stature; Horace Walpole, regarding Bess’s marital success, penned the following:

Four times the nuptial bed she warm’d,
And ev’ry time so well perform’d,
That when death spoiled each husband’s billing,
He left the widow every shilling...

I think Bess might have gotten a raw deal from historians, all men, who characterize her as selfish and greedy. She was certainly ambitious but few give her credit for founding a dynasty and building some of the finest, grandest homes of the period.

So while I like that Bess’s story is being told from a more sympathetic perspective, I couldn’t appreciate the spin doctoring of this woman’s life. In order to give this a romance-like, happy ending, the story ends with Bess marrying her fourth and final husband.

While it’s not historically inaccurate to say that her final marriage started out blissfully, it will leave readers thinking that Bess and her husband lived happily ever after -- which couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s like writing Princess Di’s story and ending the book right after her marriage to Prince Charles.

My mother thinks I’m being unfair, that the point is not to take the position of a historian but rather to simply enjoy the fictionalized account of this remarkable woman’s life. I can’t say that there aren’t plenty of fascinating historical tidbits offered in this tale.

Many Tudor family secrets are disclosed in the story line. Elizabeth I, her cousin, Lady Frances Grey -- the mother of Lady Jane Grey who sat on the throne of England for only nine days before Bloody Mary Tudor imprisoned and eventually beheaded her -- all benefit from being written about by an author who has done her research.

Despite the fine historical color, you only get a taste of what Bess of Hardwick was really like and what she achieved. Also, I’m not as forgiving as my mother concerning the many anachronisms found in this book.

--Judith Flavell