The Secret Lion, also known as The Tudor Secret, is the first book in the Elizabeth I Spymaster Chronicles by C.W. Gortner. It takes place in 1553, at the height of the Tudor scandal between Queen Elizabeth and her lover, Robert Dudley.
Brendan Prescott is a man of lowly rank who serves the Dudley household. When the queen’s brother King Edward VI mysteriously disappears, Brendan is recruited as a spy to save Queen Elizabeth. That’s basically the gist of the story.
Brendan is an interesting character. He’s humble and intelligent, and brings far more to court than initially meets the eye. As for The Secret Lion as a whole, it just didn’t stand out. It wasn’t original, and it wasn’t engaging.
After all, how many times can the story of Queen Elizabeth and Robert Dudley really be told? There’s only so much you can do with that story. Only so many new twists and spins you can put on a story that’s been done to death a million times over.
My paperback copy of The Secret Lion stands at a modest 248 pages, but it was incredibly difficult to get through. Very dull and boring. It’s predictable and lacks suspense, and the dialogue feels extremely cheesy and overly dramatic.
If you truly enjoy historical fiction and like reading about the Tudors, you can do better than this one. Try reading The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers (1986) by Margaret George, or any Tudor novel by Philippa Gregory, especially The Virgin’s Lover (2004).
Other titles by C.W. Gortner include:
- The First Actress: A Novel of Sarah Bernhardt (2020)
- The American Adventuress (2022)
- The Saint Laurent Muse (2025)
What did you think about The Secret Lion?
Last Updated on January 29, 2026 by Sarah Ann
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