What a wonderful debunking of the popular notion that Victoria's later years were dour, dark, and stuck in permanent mourning. Mourn Albert she clearly did—but as Miller's fascinating book reminds us, she remained capable of forming deep relationships of all types with men, including those, such as John Brown and Abdul Karim, whose lives were strikingly different from her own. Victoria, her family, and her world come to life in Miller's text, which is supplemented by tools, such as family trees, that help readers keep the Queen's huge network of connections straight.

This is an in depth look at Queen Victoria's life for the many years after she outlived her husband. Readers will be introduced to many people involved in her life, including staff and politicians. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC.

I’ve long been a fan of Miller’s books about the monarchy and this one is no exception.
It’s a straightforward assessment of Queen Victoria’s life, emphasizing her years as a widow.
Miller does a good job of demonstrating the queen’s quirks and personality as she tangled and toiled with her nine children and passel,of grandchildren.
This book is a great start for anyone who has yet to be introduced to Victoria and her progeny because it offers a list of all the main characters and a host of pictures to associate with the names.
It’s an excellent beginning point to deep dive into the wondrous world of the House of Windsor’s ancestry.

The book is the reconstruction of Queen Victoria's life after the death of her beloved husband. It's a fascinating read with a lot of new facts. Highly recommended.

Four the forty years after the death of her beloved Prince Albert, Queen Victoria led a reclusive life of widowhood. Or did she? This book reveals her relationship with her children and grandchildren, with her prime ministers, and with her favorites of the court. The book is intriguing, thorough, and easy to read.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

It was a pleasant and informative read but I wanted to know more about her relationship with the men like Abdul.
It's recommended if you want to learn about Victoria's life
3.5 upped to 4
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This was a really interesting book. There was so much info in here that I hadn’t heard about before.

Queen Victoria was the longest-reigning British monarch until Queen Elizabeth II broke that record. She became Queen just one month after turning 18, and she would reign until her death in 1901 at the age of 81. She married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, on 10 February 1840, and they went on to have nine children together. She was very much in love with him, and his early death in 1861 devastated her. 

Queen Victoria After Albert: Her Life and Loves by Ilana D. Miller starts with a focus on Queen Victoria, but it takes over 70 pages (about a third of the book) for Prince Albert to die. For a book with the title "Queen Victoria After Albert", this seems to be rather strange. Then, we get lost in the whirlwind of her children's marriages and her grandchildren's marriages. The book also continues to use one of my biggest pet peeves... nicknames for everyone. This seems to be especially prevalent in books about Queen Victoria and her descendants. It makes for a rather confusing book, and it seems to lose its focus on the main subject - Queen Victoria. I did enjoy reading about her relationships with her various prime ministers. 

You can tell that the author is knowledgeable, the information is all factual, and there is an abundant amount of footnotes. However, I would say there are better books out there about Queen Victoria.

I was hoping this book would go more into detail about the relationship with Mr. Brown and the other men she admired later in life. However, it was mostly focused on her children, the marriages they made, and her grandchildren. It also focused a lot on her relationships with her prime ministers. The writing is very dry as well. Would be a good book for someone wanting to learn more about the reign of Victoria, but no real intimate details of her private life.