The Queen’s Tears Review: Elizabeth St.John’s Portrait of Love and Stuart Secrets

Elizabeth St.John’s The Queen’s Tears brings a stolen jewel, a portrait with secrets beneath its surface and two women separated by centuries into a dual-timeline story. The reviewer’s verdict is enthusiastic: the historical and contemporary threads are balanced with care, and the book’s mix of family intrigue, art mystery and romance makes it an appealing choice for readers who enjoy historical fiction with a modern-day counterpart.

The story moves between Stuart England and the present. In 1619, Barbara, Lady Villiers, takes the dying Queen Anna’s jewels at the bidding of her brother-in-law, the Duke of Buckingham. Among them is the Queen’s Tears, a brooch so valuable that selling it would be dangerous and discarding it unthinkable. Barbara keeps it, imagining it might help secure her children’s future. When the family’s fortunes collapse, she faces a choice between remaining loyal to Buckingham and confessing the theft to King Charles.

In the contemporary thread, Julia Darke has opened a bookshop in the Cotswolds, hoping for a peaceful new start. A Van Dyck portrait of Barbara’s daughter unsettles that plan. Signs of the missing jewel appear to be concealed in the painting, making the portrait a puzzle Julia can’t resist. She’s also an aspiring novelist, and the artwork becomes both her inspiration and the focus of her determination to uncover the truth.

Julia’s search brings her back into contact with Oliver Villiers, an Oxford art conservator she once loved and then left behind. The two reluctantly work together to investigate the portrait and follow the trail of the jewel. Their shared history gives the present-day mystery an emotional charge: as Julia learns more about Barbara, she must also face what she has kept hidden from herself.

A portrait with more than one story

The painting gives St.John’s historical and contemporary plots a natural point of connection. The reviewer describes the central question as whether the woman in the portrait is Barbara, while the signs of something concealed beneath the overpainting invite the kind of close examination familiar from art investigation programmes. A rival who wants the painting adds pressure to Julia’s efforts, and the reviewer also points to stolen jewels and a secret society among the novel’s sources of intrigue.

That combination lets the book move between personal stakes and historical questions. Barbara’s dilemma concerns the cost of loyalty and the future of her family; Julia’s work on the portrait turns those old decisions into a present-day mystery. The reviewer particularly praises how evenly the two timelines are handled, with Julia serving as the figure who holds the story together.

Romance is part of the mix, but the reviewer says the ending doesn’t tie every thread into a neat bow. That leaves room for the story to continue, and the reviewer hopes there will be another book. Readers who prefer a historical novel to leave some questions open may find that unresolved space an invitation to keep thinking about the characters after the final page.

History shaped by family research

St.John describes The Queen’s Tears as inspired by the true stories of Queen Anna of Denmark’s stolen jewels and a missing Van Dyck painting. The novel brings together history, fiction and family research, while reconnecting with characters from her earlier work. Readers of The Lydiard Chronicles may recognize familiar figures alongside Julia, a new heroine whose bookshop and curiosity lead her into the past.

St.John’s wider body of historical fiction draws on her ancestors, including women connected to England’s royal families. Her interlinked books include The Lydiard Chronicles, among them The Lady of the Tower, as well as The Godmother’s Secret and The King’s Intelligencer. Across these works, she follows lives and legacies through periods including medieval, Tudor and Stuart times, and through subjects such as the English Civil War and the mystery of the Princes in the Tower.

Her approach draws on historical traces such as wills, letters, portraits, churches, castles, manor houses and gardens. Places and family records give her a way to connect generations, while the imagined lives of her characters explore how one person’s decisions can echo through a family’s later history. That interest in inheritance and memory fits the premise of The Queen’s Tears: a portrait and a missing jewel carry a past that the present-day characters still have to interpret.

The reviewer received an advance reader copy from the publisher and calls the book one of the best dual-timeline novels they have read. That is a personal assessment, but the reasons behind it are clear: the two periods are given room to develop, the portrait mystery links them, and the romance adds another strand without taking over the historical story.

About Elizabeth St.John

Elizabeth St.John divides her time between California, England and what she calls the past. She writes historical fiction informed by ancestral history and research, with historic places and family records shaping the settings and the stories carried across generations.

BUY THE BOOK

Universal Buy Link: https://geni.us/TheQueensTears

This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.

Author Links

Website: https://www.elizabethjstjohn.com/

Twitter / X: https://x.com/ElizStJohn

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethJStJohn/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabethjstjohn/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/elizabethstjohn.bsky.social

Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/elizabeth-st-john

Threads: https://www.threads.com/@elizabethjstjohn

Amazon Author Page: https://geni.us/AmazonElizabethStJohn

Goodreads: https://geni.us/GoodreadsElizStJohn

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethjstjohn/

The post The Queen’s Tears by Elizabeth St.John #CoffeePotBookClub #Review first appeared on Deborah Swift.