commiebeatle 's review for:

Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen by Alison Weir

3.0

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Weir really does transport you back to another time, to the point where you become so wrapped up in it that reading the story from another perspective (the second book and wife in the series) takes you by surprise, even if you know how the story goes. Even so, Weir is not an historian and at some points it is painfully obvious. Specifically whenever Katherine argues that Princess Mary should be queen in her own right. The story is, many times, plagued by her modern eyes looking back on history, trying to mould Katherine into something she was not simply for the sake of making her more relatable to modern women. Though it isn’t as easy to spot it when only reading this book, reading the Anne Boleyn sequel also makes it painfully obvious how biased Weir is towards Katherine. The writing was dry at times and repetitive. However, it is not the language that you read this novel for, but for the story. My tip would be to skip the sequel, roll your eyes at the inaccurate moments, and enjoy 500+ pages of Tudor history coming alive at your fingertips.