"Shorland takes a very friendly approach to describe the difficult life of King Charles II's Queen Consort, the Portuguese Catherine of Braganza. It is gorgeously written with visual descriptions that are so clear that they can be painted on canvas. The level of engagement that the writing provides would make this book a blockbuster movie, filled with sparkling characters fighting for the top spot in the Royal Court."

– World History Encyclopedia

"Intriguing and meticulously researched, this book about Catherine of Braganza is highly recommended for readers interested in British history and royal biographies."

– Library Journal

"Sophie Shorland's The Lost Queen is wonderfully rich in the 17th-century details of lives, loves, politics, and power, in England and in Europe. The book rightly challenges ideas about the wife of Charles II and his treatment of her. We've too easily preferred the gossip of the merry monarch's mistresses over this remarkable woman showing dignified courage and tenacity in the face of constant threats to her position."

– Suzie Edge, author of Mortal Monarchs: 1000 Years of Royal Deaths

"A lively and long-awaited biography of one of Britain's most under-rated queens."

– Linda Porter, author of Mistresses

"This lively, fascinating book retrieves an overlooked queen from a historical siding and restores her to the center of European politics and Charles II's London."

– Suzannah Lipscomb, award-winning historian and broadcaster, and author of What is History, Now?

"Although this is Shorland's first book, she writes with the confidence of a much more experienced author. She has thankfully discarded the rigid conventions of academia in favor of telling a good story, embracing character, emotion, and drama. Her often lighthearted manner is for the most part refreshing, especially given a story so bleak."

– The Times (UK)

"Between these covers we rediscover a lost queen, having now emerged from the shadow of her husband, Charles II. She stands before us as never before, complex, astute and fully realised, all thanks to Shorland’s sensitive and robust retelling of her life. 'Let Bonfires blaze' indeed, for here, finally, is the long-awaited history of Catherine of Braganza."

– Anthony Delaney, History Hit presenter, author of the forthcoming Queer Georgians

"Another neglected Early Modern woman finally gets the biography she deserves! Shorland's is a confident, cosmopolitan and always accessible life of the Queen Consort who brought England nothing less than the first toeholds of a truly global empire, and the habit of tea-drinking."

– Ophelia Field, author of The Favourite

"What a wonderful subject Sophie Shorland has picked. It's for far too long that Charles II's Portuguese queen has been neglected or misrepresented. Shorland connects her to our own times in a splendidly sympathetic and sparky portrait, filled with unexpected images of a courageous woman who wasn't afraid to create her own circle and defend her beliefs at an English court dominated by her husband's mistresses. Wittily written and rich in detail."

– Miranda Seymour, author of I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys and In Byron's Wake