[Greyson]

I am currently reading the Jane Dunn book. After I finish this, then onto Gold's book about the Irish Pirate Queen. I was drawn to read these books because they were all very powerful women living in 16th Century Britian. To be powerful women in these times I suspect these women were "above average."

If you like history, and powerful women I think you will enjoy reading these books. Queen Elizabeth and Grace O'Malley did meet, face-to-face. Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots never did meet face-to-face. Most of us know how that story ended.
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Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens -Jane Dunn

Against the backdrop of sixteenth-century England, Scotland, and France, Dunn paints portraits of a pair of protagonists whose formidable strengths were placed in relentless opposition. Protestant Elizabeth, the bastard daughter of Anne Boleyn, whose legitimacy had to be vouchsafed by legal means, glowed with executive ability and a visionary energy as bright as her red hair. Mary, the Catholic successor whom England’s rivals wished to see on the throne, was charming, feminine, and deeply persuasive. That two such women, queens in their own right, should have been contemporaries and neighbours sets in motion a joint biography of rare spark and page-turning power.


The Pirate Queen: The Story of Grace O'Malley, Irish Pirate -Alan Gold

Grace O'Malley commanded a dozen ships and the obedience of thousands of men. Her empire stretched from Connaught on the Irish coast to the cobalt aters of Africa. Through the daring of her piracy, Grace nearly bankrupted the English treasury-and her outright defiance brought embarrassment to Elizabeth I. Yet the lives of these two amazing women were inextricably intertwined-and their eventual meeting during the most brilliant and romantic era that Europe has ever known would shock the world.