Glory and the Clever Cat by Carol Storm

Title: Glory and the Clever Cat
Author: Carol Storm
Publisher: Noble Romance
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Blurb:

Queen Catharine of Echosea will do anything to save her country. Queen Gloriana of Albion leads her people with the strength of a man. Two warrior queens, imperious and beautiful. Destiny made them rivals . . . passion made them lovers!

Review:

A young woman arrives at castle on the night of Queen Gloriana’s Winter Feast. The queen is celebrating her victory over her rival, Queen Catherine of Echosea, and the traveler is invited to feast with them. She offers to lead Gloriana to the location of Queen Catherine and what’s left of the army, in exchange for Gloriana allowing Catherine to surrender. What Gloriana doesn’t know is that the young woman is Queen Catherine in disguise, attempting to lure the rival queen into a trap. The one that actually gets trapped is Catherine, and the women who were destined to be at odds with one another find a shared passion.

Glory and the Clever Cat is a well written story about two women from opposite sides of a long-standing rivalry. It requires an element of suspension of disbelief to accept all the events that happen within the story, especially that Catherine passes so easily for a boy and that Gloriana accepts Catherine so quickly into her bed. At the core this story focuses on two women who are meant to be against one another finding out they share something in common. I liked that through the story there are times when Catherine learns that her preconceived notions about Gloriana are not necessarily true. There is quite a bit of comparison between how the two women rule, and each is effective in their own way, but it is their differences that are most intriguing.

The ending comes to a resolution very quickly, with a happy ending tacked on that felt rushed and sudden. I think the story would have better with more detail added in, which could have made the ending more solid. As the story is told from Catherine’s point of view, her characterization is stronger than Gloriana, who is portrayed as a larger than life figure. Overall this is a decent and quick historical tale that is enjoyable but could have benefited from a bit more development.