Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Crown of Aloes  By  cover art

Crown of Aloes

By: Norah Lofts
Narrated by: Patience Tomlinson
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $17.17

Buy for $17.17

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Isabella of Spain was a great woman, a great Queen. Crown of Aloes is presented as a personal chronicle.

Within the framework of known fact and detail drawn from hitherto unexploited contemporary Spanish sources, a novelist’s imagination and understanding have provided motives, thoughts, and private conversations, helping to build up the fascinating character Isabella must have been.

Her fortunes were varied indeed: she knew acute poverty, faced anxiety and danger with high courage, gave much, suffered much, lived to the full. At the end she was mainly aware of her failures. It was left to others to realise how spectacular her successes had been.

©1991 Norah Lofts (P)2013 Soundings

What listeners say about Crown of Aloes

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A VERY INTERESTING & COMPELLING STORY

I so wanted to listen to an audiobook about Spanish history, either fact or fiction based on fact, so I searched the database here and came up with "The Crown of Castile: How Isabel Happened To Become Queen" by Beverly Enwall. Great, right? NEGATORY!!! It may have been a good story but the author decided that SHE WHO WRITES CAN ALSO NARRATE! It was awful! It sounded like somebody's Granny reading "Cinderella" while trying to keep her dentures from falling out! Plus you can't write about Isabella without mentioning her predecessor and half-brother King Henry IV, a well-known and overt homosexual who preferred young boys. Nothing wrong with that except who wants to listen to "Nana" reading about buggering boys?!?! It's really sad when a writer ruins her own book. I returned it but still had a "hankering" to learn a little bit about Queen Isabel of Spain. I gambled my refunded credit on this book. It definitely "scratched that itch" for me. The author successfully uses literary license to weave known historical facts with fiction to deliver a good story. Patience Tomlinson does a great job narrating. Well worth the "price of admission"!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful