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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
Before I dive into this review, let me first make a confession. I originally tried to read this book straight after The Other Boleyn Girl and I HATED it. I mean I absolutely loathed it, refused to finish it. My main problem, was that I felt in sympathised with the evil Jane Boleyn/Lady Rochford. So I put it aside and vowed never to pick it up again.
Until other people read my copy and loved it.
So now, some 8 months on, I gave it another go. As you can deduce from my rating, I was pleasantly surprised. I wasn't still caught up in the passion of Anne and Mary and it freed me to find the characters fascinating. Voila! Suddenly these three women were three dimensional, living, breathing figures of history. Lady Rochford is a complex, unstable woman with incredible influence and no loyalty. Kitty Howard is more than just a vain, stupid teenager. She is a young girl thrust into a destiny she's unprepared for, married to a man old enough to be her grandfather. Anne of Cleaves is not a boring foreigner either; she is a woman of grace and compassion with everything to lose, a woman reminisce of Queen Katherine of Aragon.
Gregory tells this story in first person, taking on the perspective of all three main characters. Although this technique lends itself to repetitiveness and too much exposition, Gregory manages it well and there are few times when the book struggle with this problem. All three voices are easily distinguished from one another and the varied chapter lengths make it a very quick read.
I absolutely adored little Kitty Howard; which is a completely bittersweet emotion knowing how she ends her time with King Henry! Her thought process at times had me having a chuckle and at other times shaking my head in disbelief. Such a young, silly little thing to be left at court with the vultures. Such a dear little thing. Such a tragic little thing! The novel is probably worth reading just to unravel the complexities Philippa Gregory wove with this one character. She is ignorant yet observant, innocent yet scheming but above all self-serving. Simply fascinating.
Read this novel if: You would like an overview of the tyranny and fear that was the last years of Henry VIII's life.
Don't read this novel if: You've just finished The Other Boleyn Girl. Read a few books inbetween. If you attempt to read this straight away, you may spoil it.
Until other people read my copy and loved it.
So now, some 8 months on, I gave it another go. As you can deduce from my rating, I was pleasantly surprised. I wasn't still caught up in the passion of Anne and Mary and it freed me to find the characters fascinating. Voila! Suddenly these three women were three dimensional, living, breathing figures of history. Lady Rochford is a complex, unstable woman with incredible influence and no loyalty. Kitty Howard is more than just a vain, stupid teenager. She is a young girl thrust into a destiny she's unprepared for, married to a man old enough to be her grandfather. Anne of Cleaves is not a boring foreigner either; she is a woman of grace and compassion with everything to lose, a woman reminisce of Queen Katherine of Aragon.
Gregory tells this story in first person, taking on the perspective of all three main characters. Although this technique lends itself to repetitiveness and too much exposition, Gregory manages it well and there are few times when the book struggle with this problem. All three voices are easily distinguished from one another and the varied chapter lengths make it a very quick read.
I absolutely adored little Kitty Howard; which is a completely bittersweet emotion knowing how she ends her time with King Henry! Her thought process at times had me having a chuckle and at other times shaking my head in disbelief. Such a young, silly little thing to be left at court with the vultures. Such a dear little thing. Such a tragic little thing! The novel is probably worth reading just to unravel the complexities Philippa Gregory wove with this one character. She is ignorant yet observant, innocent yet scheming but above all self-serving. Simply fascinating.
Read this novel if: You would like an overview of the tyranny and fear that was the last years of Henry VIII's life.
Don't read this novel if: You've just finished The Other Boleyn Girl. Read a few books inbetween. If you attempt to read this straight away, you may spoil it.
I think I enjoyed this Philippa Gregory book so much because it juxtaposed the 3 characters (Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard & Jane Boleyn) and was therefore less repetitive than many of her other works. I find, as a general rule, that Gregory makes her characters repeat and rearticulate their thoughts in slightly varied sentences, sometimes only paragraphs apart. This is stylistic, but can become tedious when reading from only one character's perspective. I have never thought much about Jane Boleyn and the presentation of Katherine Howard provided some possible insight towards her character that makes her rather more sympathetic and pathetic than straight history would have us believe.
This book narrates the fates of three women tied to Henry XIII and Anne Boleyn: Anne of Cleves, who succeeded Anne as Henry's wife; Katherine Howard, who succeeded Anne of Cleves to be the next of Henry's wives; and Jane Seymour, who schemed with her uncle,the Duke of Norfolk, to seal these two women's fates. It's "history light" served with a generous helping of scandal, and it's a lot of fun.
Thoroughly enjoyed it, but oh so trashy. This is exactly the kind of book for a long day of travel, though.
Yet another wonderful installment. I love the three different perspectives on the dire situations facing these three women, and the insight into their motivations and fears. I find myself pitying Jane Boleyn, as she just gets crazier by the minute in the book...
Another great Phillippa Gregory read! This one started off a little slow and having two queens (Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard) was a little bit of an adjustment, but I really liked this one! Once I get into it, I couldn't put it down. I'll be reading the next one in this series, though I hate to leave Henry's saga.
OMGZ LYING JEALOUSY + HOT ROALTY SEXORZ
I read this in two days.
I read this in two days.
Many years ago I read and enjoyed [b:The Other Boleyn Girl|37470|The Other Boleyn Girl (The Tudor Court, #2)|Philippa Gregory|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1355932638s/37470.jpg|3248536] and raced to the first next book by this author I could find, which was [b:Wideacre|16188|Wideacre (The Wideacre Trilogy, #1)|Philippa Gregory|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1289170133s/16188.jpg|3969]. Oh dear, what a wrong choice that was. I HATED Wideacre , hated it with a passion, and vowed to never bother with a Phillippa Gregory book again. .
I have no great love for court dramas, all that bed hopping, backstabbing and scheming is sometimes exhausting to read so I never thought I would miss much by not continuing the Tudor Series. But a good and trusted friend kept on reading the series and telling me how much she enjoys it so I finally I decided to give this series another chance.
And now at the end of this audio book all I can say is WOW, what an audio production. Little vain and utterly vapid Katherine (Kitty) Howard was my favourite from a narration point of view but all 3 narrators did a brilliant job bringing this book to life.
For anyone who does not know the history after Anne Boleyn’s head was chopped off herewith a quick synopsis:
Anne of Cleve becomes wife nr 4 in a marriage arranged by Thomas Cromwell. This shy woman is brought to court with no understanding of English and completely unable to navigate the politics. I really felt sorry for her and was delighted as the story unfolded showing how she matured into a woman so much stronger than ever expected.
Jane Boleyn – the sister in law to Anne Boleyn brought back to court by her Uncle Howard to monitor, watch and spy on the queen. Jane is a bitter woman feeling entitled to be back at court and trying her best to block out the death of her husband and sister-in-law.
Katherine Howard is a pretty spoilt littleslut flirt of only 14 years old. She makes social errors and cause scandal again and again with an almost childlike innocence, measuring her happiness in the one thing she does understand, material things.
I actually felt sympathy for all 3 these women. Every one of them were nothing more than puppets on a mad master’s strings.
This novel is full of intrigue, backstabbing, political gaming, greed and beheading. All of which make the perfect plot. I have to commend the author for presenting history in such an entertaining yet informative way for readers like me who know little about the Tudor period.
The writing however is not flawless and if I had read it instead of listening to it I would probably have given it a slightly lower rating. There is quite a bit of repetition in the text. The words “He is so old he could be my Grandfather”, and “Boleyn Inheritance” were repeated a few times too many but the audio allows for more forgiveness in this regard when the narration is captivating.
So my advice is that if you can get this book in audio format, go for it. It was highly entertaining!
I have no great love for court dramas, all that bed hopping, backstabbing and scheming is sometimes exhausting to read so I never thought I would miss much by not continuing the Tudor Series. But a good and trusted friend kept on reading the series and telling me how much she enjoys it so I finally I decided to give this series another chance.
And now at the end of this audio book all I can say is WOW, what an audio production. Little vain and utterly vapid Katherine (Kitty) Howard was my favourite from a narration point of view but all 3 narrators did a brilliant job bringing this book to life.
For anyone who does not know the history after Anne Boleyn’s head was chopped off herewith a quick synopsis:
Anne of Cleve becomes wife nr 4 in a marriage arranged by Thomas Cromwell. This shy woman is brought to court with no understanding of English and completely unable to navigate the politics. I really felt sorry for her and was delighted as the story unfolded showing how she matured into a woman so much stronger than ever expected.
Jane Boleyn – the sister in law to Anne Boleyn brought back to court by her Uncle Howard to monitor, watch and spy on the queen. Jane is a bitter woman feeling entitled to be back at court and trying her best to block out the death of her husband and sister-in-law.
Katherine Howard is a pretty spoilt little
I actually felt sympathy for all 3 these women. Every one of them were nothing more than puppets on a mad master’s strings.
This novel is full of intrigue, backstabbing, political gaming, greed and beheading. All of which make the perfect plot. I have to commend the author for presenting history in such an entertaining yet informative way for readers like me who know little about the Tudor period.
The writing however is not flawless and if I had read it instead of listening to it I would probably have given it a slightly lower rating. There is quite a bit of repetition in the text. The words “He is so old he could be my Grandfather”, and “Boleyn Inheritance” were repeated a few times too many but the audio allows for more forgiveness in this regard when the narration is captivating.
So my advice is that if you can get this book in audio format, go for it. It was highly entertaining!
I just couldn’t stay focused on this one for some reason. I think this is one of those that may actually be better as an audiobook, so I wouldn’t be opposed to trying it again in that format.
I’m a huge fan of these historical novels by Philippa Gregory and have read just about all of the ones that deal directly with the English court during the Tudor era. History buffs quibble with how authentic they may or may not be. It seems to me that she follows the history pretty closely and then creates the drama from there. Clearly, she’s using writer’s license to project feelings, conversations, etc., but that’s what historical fiction is, as far as I can tell. I was in London while I was reading this book, so it made it an even more intriguing and fun read (and more intriguing and fun to visit the palaces where most of the action took place!)