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jessrozy's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
andrewgvnn's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
bexwat's review against another edition
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
candacesiegle_greedyreader's review against another edition
4.0
No matter how novels written about them, Alison Weir shows there are still more engrossing tales of Henry VIII and his queens to be told. She takes on Jane Seymour this time, one of the queens about whom very little is actually known: as a historian, Weir is able to build a story around her that rings true and captures the reader from the start. The "Haunted Queen" aspect is what's shaky--Jane does not seem like the sort of person to see apparitions and considering the company she keeps, she probably has the least blood on her hands.
I'm really looking forward to Weir's novel about Anne of Cleves, the other queen about whom little is known. We do know that she was the only one of Henry's wives to be rejected and live to tell the tale. How did she pull that off?
Alison Weir is best known as a historian, and her handling of dialogue can be stiff (characters growl, opine, and mutter). Get past that and "Haunted Queen" is good going, with an informative afterward that examines what might have caused Jane's death. All good enough to have me back on a Tudor toot!
I'm really looking forward to Weir's novel about Anne of Cleves, the other queen about whom little is known. We do know that she was the only one of Henry's wives to be rejected and live to tell the tale. How did she pull that off?
Alison Weir is best known as a historian, and her handling of dialogue can be stiff (characters growl, opine, and mutter). Get past that and "Haunted Queen" is good going, with an informative afterward that examines what might have caused Jane's death. All good enough to have me back on a Tudor toot!
siraels's review against another edition
4.0
4 or 4,5 stars (I'm not sure)
When I read Six wives of Henry VIII by the same author few months back, I fell in live with it. Even before I was interested in this time period but I feel like only finally reading this book made me finally fall in love with it and I should probably thank my mum for buying it with me having no idea about it. And she did it again now, with Jane Seymour, I wanted a completely different book but she bought me this one instead after the end of the school year and I'm glad she did. Both books made me want to get to know more about this whole thing, read more books and watch more documentaries, films and TV series. (Not really something like Tudors or Reign but feel free to recommend anything. )
With this book it's really hard to tell what is fiction and what are facts. But I still enjoyed the story. Yeah, they were parts what I enjoyed more like the beginning and her childhood and her life before she came to court, when she was lady in waiting for Catherine of Aragon or the parts with the important events of Anne Boleyn's life and her death ( I don't like Anne Boleyn but it was really interesting).
The parts I didn't like was probably mainly the romance between Jane and Henry, like don't get me wrong, I like romance, but there was not much special about it. It reminded me some regular nowadays romance with Tudor clothes and one character being the king of England and the other a girl who's not a royal. But it was still pretty important for the story and I liked how they cared for each other.
It told the story of the important events during the reign of Henry VIII how we thought Jane Seymour would see them and I liked it. Like, of course, it's not 100% true but we can't know anything from that time period for sure if we don't own a time machine. (When I'll meet the Doctor I'll let you know.)
Jane was a likeable character and I liked her. I know some may think that she was a boring queen but I like her because she didn't thought she was important and didn't cause so much drama as Anne or Kathryn. I know many people like these two queen but I won't be hesitant to say that I despise them and how they act. But on the other hand, yeah, I agree with the fact that they deserved better ending than the one they got. No one should be killed just because of some small mistakes. But it's true that Henry needed to get rid of them and there wasn't really another way at that time.
Overall I really enjoyed it. There were parts where I couldn't stop reading and read around fifty to eighty pages in one sitting, which is lot for me. The characters were also kinda realistic and felt pretty believable. I didn't even plan on reading any book from the series but now I'll surely continue with it. I want to read Catherine of Aragon because she truly was the true queen, Anne of Cleves because she's such an interesting person and Katherine Parr really badly because she's my favourite queen.
When I read Six wives of Henry VIII by the same author few months back, I fell in live with it. Even before I was interested in this time period but I feel like only finally reading this book made me finally fall in love with it and I should probably thank my mum for buying it with me having no idea about it. And she did it again now, with Jane Seymour, I wanted a completely different book but she bought me this one instead after the end of the school year and I'm glad she did. Both books made me want to get to know more about this whole thing, read more books and watch more documentaries, films and TV series. (Not really something like Tudors or Reign but feel free to recommend anything. )
With this book it's really hard to tell what is fiction and what are facts. But I still enjoyed the story. Yeah, they were parts what I enjoyed more like the beginning and her childhood and her life before she came to court, when she was lady in waiting for Catherine of Aragon or the parts with the important events of Anne Boleyn's life and her death ( I don't like Anne Boleyn but it was really interesting).
The parts I didn't like was probably mainly the romance between Jane and Henry, like don't get me wrong, I like romance, but there was not much special about it. It reminded me some regular nowadays romance with Tudor clothes and one character being the king of England and the other a girl who's not a royal. But it was still pretty important for the story and I liked how they cared for each other.
It told the story of the important events during the reign of Henry VIII how we thought Jane Seymour would see them and I liked it. Like, of course, it's not 100% true but we can't know anything from that time period for sure if we don't own a time machine. (When I'll meet the Doctor I'll let you know.)
Jane was a likeable character and I liked her. I know some may think that she was a boring queen but I like her because she didn't thought she was important and didn't cause so much drama as Anne or Kathryn. I know many people like these two queen but I won't be hesitant to say that I despise them and how they act. But on the other hand, yeah, I agree with the fact that they deserved better ending than the one they got. No one should be killed just because of some small mistakes. But it's true that Henry needed to get rid of them and there wasn't really another way at that time.
Overall I really enjoyed it. There were parts where I couldn't stop reading and read around fifty to eighty pages in one sitting, which is lot for me. The characters were also kinda realistic and felt pretty believable. I didn't even plan on reading any book from the series but now I'll surely continue with it. I want to read Catherine of Aragon because she truly was the true queen, Anne of Cleves because she's such an interesting person and Katherine Parr really badly because she's my favourite queen.
jmmoore2003's review against another edition
emotional
informative
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
ladyethyme's review against another edition
1.0
The best thing about this book, frankly, is the narrator. I’m not sure who the narrator is on audible, but she does an absolutely fantastic job. I actually went and looked to see if there were multiple voice actors involved, because she does male voices so incredibly well.
Onto the book.
Really, really sadly disappointed. I had thought Allison to be a well researched writer, but this is the first and only book I will ever read of hers if this is the level of research she does. She claims to have done research, but….
It was absolutely pathetic, a regurgitation of Victorian romance tropes written by Victorian “historians”, who enjoyed putting the wives into categories like “saint“, “whore“, “innocent“,… When the reality was far more complicated and interesting.
So let’s get some basic stuff out-of-the-way, first off, Anne did not wear white to her wedding. This is almost an eyeroll level error… Queen Victoria was the first English queen to wear white at her wedding, and it was quite a scandal, as all English queens before her more very rich embroidered fabric and cloth of gold. This was absolutely standard and could not have been any other way in a medieval wedding, even a private one - which Henry and Ann had.
Secondly, there’s far too many references to having flowing hair, or having your hair down in public… which was absolutely not a thing in any historical sense whatsoever… It’s why the French hood was so risqué and considered so very shocking, because it *gasp* kept the front part of your hair which was pulled back showing while the rest was covered. Unlike the gable hood which covers everything on your hairline completely on the side of your head. Once you hit marriageable age, you covered your hair, period.
Weir claims there was no successful cesarean preformed before the 20th century. This isn’t true. According to the nih, “Perhaps the first written record we have of a mother and baby surviving a cesarean section comes from Switzerland in 1500 when a sow gelder, Jacob Nufer, performed the operation on his wife.” Also recorded is 1794 as the first US successful cesarean where both mother and child survived. These are easily googled, from reputable government sources, so I don’t know why once again she is misinformed.
And in a household extremely wealthy aristocratic people, the mother would not be baking or cooking herself. That is just absolutely ridiculous, it would be considered almost shameful… There is no way that at that level of society did not employ an army of servants and a cook.
The idea that Henry would have Anne’s old dresses burned is absolutely off the wall. In the book, he has the jewels taken off the dresses and then the dresses were burned. This would absolutely not happen, as often fabric was far FAR more expensive abd valuable than the jewels on top of them…
Many of them had cloth of gold inserts, which basically means the cloth itself is woven from gold thread. Real gold. Spun into thread. Cloth was not so “fast fashion“ as it is today… Not even Henry VIII could afford to burn fabric. Fabric would be re-cut, reused, until it literally disintegrated upon the wearer.
And Tudors didn’t ‘have a bath’. That…. wasn’t a thing. Even if there WAS- they’d have to heat each panful of water over a fire and dump it in a ‘tub’ (which they didn’t have-not like we do). Which would take ages-but in the book it’s like her maids just ran her a bath in the tap; as it’s ready in the space of five lines of conversation.
There could be a whole book on medieval bathing and hygiene-but I’m not going to write it here and bore you all to death. But basically, linen rubbing was the norm, as bathing would open the pores, which was considered unhealthy.
Also, for the references to the supernatural are just cringe. Edward seeing a vision in a cup of water, Jane hearing the words of the yet to be Queen Elizabeth at Hatfield, visions of ghosts; all of these weird occurrences which… Never happened, and are just ludicrous to the point of laughability, and quite frankly, taking the reader out of the construct and the time period. Weir also refers to this in her endnotes as if it actually occurred-it didn’t.
In a scene where Jane visits the tower… I was completely confused if the author had even ever been to England, or visited the tower. Because the tower is not… A tower. It’s not some tower in the middle of a cornfield just sitting there with a bunch of rooms in it. The “Tower” of is a complex series of buildings, with many many interconnected courtyards and was in fact a royal residence, where Anne and Henry stayed for their honeymoon.
So… having it be in a scene where it is basically just a scary Gothic tower in the middle of nowhere when Jane observes Anne ‘in a ‘secret meeting’ Is ludicrous. I know I keep using that word, but there’s really no other way to describe this book.
Thomas More is heralded as some kind of humanist, deeply spiritual man and protector of the people-who ‘died for his conscience’ - when he in fact burned people alive in his back garden, and had a…uncomfortably close relationship with his oldest daughter. All of these things are recorded in primary sources which can be found by any historian that bothers to actually do research.
The princess Mary is also treated gently, being referred to continuously as kind and gentle. This is completely at odds with reports of her; she was very intelligent, skilled and accomplished, but this is Bloody Mary we’re talking about… Who gleefully sent hundreds of people to be burned alive in one of the most sadistic culls ever to occur in England, in an attempt to force the country back into fundamentalist Catholicism… Which they absolutely did not want- which is why it failed so spectacularly.
Indeed her youth was…stressful to the extreme, absolutely. And I do feel empathy for the young girl. But the woman she became was another matter. It is a reason, but not an excuse.
But let’s get to the real travesty of this book. The real, actual issues that I have:
The treatment of Anne and Henry. It appears that Henry is completely let off the hook for discarding and killing his wives, as he is shown to be a sympathetic and completely manipulated husband; under the throes of a harridan, a nagging “fish wife“.
He has absolutely no responsibility for this attack on Anne whatsoever in the book, and I find that really irritating. Also Henry whining that Anne MADE HIM “send Moore to his death”
Onto the book.
Really, really sadly disappointed. I had thought Allison to be a well researched writer, but this is the first and only book I will ever read of hers if this is the level of research she does. She claims to have done research, but….
It was absolutely pathetic, a regurgitation of Victorian romance tropes written by Victorian “historians”, who enjoyed putting the wives into categories like “saint“, “whore“, “innocent“,… When the reality was far more complicated and interesting.
So let’s get some basic stuff out-of-the-way, first off, Anne did not wear white to her wedding. This is almost an eyeroll level error… Queen Victoria was the first English queen to wear white at her wedding, and it was quite a scandal, as all English queens before her more very rich embroidered fabric and cloth of gold. This was absolutely standard and could not have been any other way in a medieval wedding, even a private one - which Henry and Ann had.
Secondly, there’s far too many references to having flowing hair, or having your hair down in public… which was absolutely not a thing in any historical sense whatsoever… It’s why the French hood was so risqué and considered so very shocking, because it *gasp* kept the front part of your hair which was pulled back showing while the rest was covered. Unlike the gable hood which covers everything on your hairline completely on the side of your head. Once you hit marriageable age, you covered your hair, period.
Weir claims there was no successful cesarean preformed before the 20th century. This isn’t true. According to the nih, “Perhaps the first written record we have of a mother and baby surviving a cesarean section comes from Switzerland in 1500 when a sow gelder, Jacob Nufer, performed the operation on his wife.” Also recorded is 1794 as the first US successful cesarean where both mother and child survived. These are easily googled, from reputable government sources, so I don’t know why once again she is misinformed.
And in a household extremely wealthy aristocratic people, the mother would not be baking or cooking herself. That is just absolutely ridiculous, it would be considered almost shameful… There is no way that at that level of society did not employ an army of servants and a cook.
The idea that Henry would have Anne’s old dresses burned is absolutely off the wall. In the book, he has the jewels taken off the dresses and then the dresses were burned. This would absolutely not happen, as often fabric was far FAR more expensive abd valuable than the jewels on top of them…
Many of them had cloth of gold inserts, which basically means the cloth itself is woven from gold thread. Real gold. Spun into thread. Cloth was not so “fast fashion“ as it is today… Not even Henry VIII could afford to burn fabric. Fabric would be re-cut, reused, until it literally disintegrated upon the wearer.
And Tudors didn’t ‘have a bath’. That…. wasn’t a thing. Even if there WAS- they’d have to heat each panful of water over a fire and dump it in a ‘tub’ (which they didn’t have-not like we do). Which would take ages-but in the book it’s like her maids just ran her a bath in the tap; as it’s ready in the space of five lines of conversation.
There could be a whole book on medieval bathing and hygiene-but I’m not going to write it here and bore you all to death. But basically, linen rubbing was the norm, as bathing would open the pores, which was considered unhealthy.
Also, for the references to the supernatural are just cringe. Edward seeing a vision in a cup of water, Jane hearing the words of the yet to be Queen Elizabeth at Hatfield, visions of ghosts; all of these weird occurrences which… Never happened, and are just ludicrous to the point of laughability, and quite frankly, taking the reader out of the construct and the time period. Weir also refers to this in her endnotes as if it actually occurred-it didn’t.
In a scene where Jane visits the tower… I was completely confused if the author had even ever been to England, or visited the tower. Because the tower is not… A tower. It’s not some tower in the middle of a cornfield just sitting there with a bunch of rooms in it. The “Tower” of is a complex series of buildings, with many many interconnected courtyards and was in fact a royal residence, where Anne and Henry stayed for their honeymoon.
So… having it be in a scene where it is basically just a scary Gothic tower in the middle of nowhere when Jane observes Anne ‘in a ‘secret meeting’ Is ludicrous. I know I keep using that word, but there’s really no other way to describe this book.
Thomas More is heralded as some kind of humanist, deeply spiritual man and protector of the people-who ‘died for his conscience’ - when he in fact burned people alive in his back garden, and had a…uncomfortably close relationship with his oldest daughter. All of these things are recorded in primary sources which can be found by any historian that bothers to actually do research.
The princess Mary is also treated gently, being referred to continuously as kind and gentle. This is completely at odds with reports of her; she was very intelligent, skilled and accomplished, but this is Bloody Mary we’re talking about… Who gleefully sent hundreds of people to be burned alive in one of the most sadistic culls ever to occur in England, in an attempt to force the country back into fundamentalist Catholicism… Which they absolutely did not want- which is why it failed so spectacularly.
Indeed her youth was…stressful to the extreme, absolutely. And I do feel empathy for the young girl. But the woman she became was another matter. It is a reason, but not an excuse.
But let’s get to the real travesty of this book. The real, actual issues that I have:
The treatment of Anne and Henry. It appears that Henry is completely let off the hook for discarding and killing his wives, as he is shown to be a sympathetic and completely manipulated husband; under the throes of a harridan, a nagging “fish wife“.
He has absolutely no responsibility for this attack on Anne whatsoever in the book, and I find that really irritating. Also Henry whining that Anne MADE HIM “send Moore to his death”
bec_wheels's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This novel brings Jane Seymour to life as we get insight into her upbringing and life before becoming Henry's queen. We get to see see her devotion to Katherine of Aragon, her dislike of Anne Boleyn and the reasoning why Henry was attracted to her. Additionally, we have some insight into Jane's personality, and it was interesting to see Anne's downfall from Jane's perspective. Finally, Alison Weir gives a detailed explanation of Jane's death came to be which was incredibly insightful. I enjoyed this book as Jane is brought to life as an actual woman rather than just the wife who died giving Henry an heir.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage
unsolvedmysteries1's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
freyathefridayfairy's review against another edition
5.0
I wish I could give more than five stars. This book is amazing!!