An Uncommon Woman: The Empress Frederick, by Hannah Pakula (Phoenix Giant, £10.99 in UK)

Eldest child of Queen Victoria and named after her mother (she was generally called Vicky), this English princess married Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia, a man whom almost everybody seems to have liked and respected. She did not hit it off, with Bismarck, who disliked her English-style liberalism and resented her influence, over her husband - particularly after Germany had been unified under Prussia and Frederick became the heir-apparent not only to a throne, but to an empire. Though English historians have usually painted her in rose tints, many Germans thought her meddlesome, and her strained relations with her son, the future Kaiser Wilhelm, helped to shape (or distort) his somewhat neurotic character. By the time Frederick came to the throne, he was dying of cancer, of the throat and reigned for a mere 60 days, a fact which had baleful repercussions for Germany; Vicky survived him by 13 years, dying in 1901. This is a good and solid biography, but at 700 pages, a little dense for the ordinary reader.