Author - Alison Weir
Series - Six Tudor Queen's #1
Genre - Adult > Historical Fiction
Release Date - UK - 5th May 2016 -- US - 31st May 2016
My Copy - ARC
Format - Kindle
Where You Can Find It - Goodreads - Waterstones - Barnes & Noble - Book Depository - Amazon UK - Amazon US
This may be a long one since i have like 15 pages of notes to go through, so have this book pre ordered anyway as i am going to a talk about this book at Hampton Court Palace on the 9th May 2016 and i have read only one book by this author but i really enjoyed it and her writing so when i heard she was bringing this series out i was very excited. And it didn't disappoint.
So lets start with part 1 which is called The Princess from Spain, in this part we get to meet a lot of the characters for the first time. From Henry VII to The Duke of York, Prince Harry & also Catalina's Court of Spanish People. My personal favourite part of this chapter was meeting Elizabeth of York Katherine's Mother in Law and my personal favourite Queen Consort in English History, the way she was written like calling Harry a rouge and you can just imagine her being one of those mothers that are like Boys will be Boys. Katherine is in a strange Country with a different language and strange food with everything she is put through after the death of her husband after only a few short months of marriage she becomes a widow at the age of sixteen, with no family and no friends to help her find a place in the world she must rely on her Father in Law who is known for being tight fisted, and he gets extremely worse when Elizabeth his wife and true love Dies he becomes bitter and Katherine becomes just something else to deal with. We don't see much of Harry in the beginning of this part just a few bits here and there but towards the end he is in a few more times but even then because Henry VII is keeping Katherine away we don't see much of him or know of his character. But we definitely get to see more of that in part two, Harry then becomes King Henry VIII but not the tyrant we all know now he is nicer, kinder, more chivalrous and treats Katherine the way she deserves.
Part Two: Queen of England, was my favourite part of this book it had the best part of their relationship but also the worse and it really showed their marriage for what it was a loving one in the beginning and then it turned into the car crash we know it to be today, so we start with the wedding night and it is a very different Henry than what we think of him now and we only really start getting to that Henry towards the end of Part Two also in this section we are introduced to 3 of her successors Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour & Katherine Parr, we also see Katherine go through so many miscarriages and still Born's it is very emotional and very hard hitting because you can feel the pain she and Henry are going through every time another of their children passes away. and we also see the beginning of the relationship between Henry & Anne and i can honestly say i have always loved Anne Boleyn but this book actually made me dislike her i have never really read it from Katherine's POV before but know that i have i realised what a piece of work that woman was.
Part Three: The True Queen, this is my least favourite of the parts only because it seemed to drag on and didn't seem to go anywhere, it was a lot of Anne is acting as if she is already Queen and Henry being really inconsiderate not only to Katherine but the the Girl who he called the Pearl of his life his daughter Mary. This part also sees Henry separating from Rome and changing the course of English religion forever. Even after leaving Katherine he still kept twisting the knife and it was heart breaking to read how devoted she was to him even with everything that he did to her. This book ends with the end of Kate's life it is a lovely scene where she is falling and she sees her children's arms reaching for her.
I enjoyed this book, it was a tad too long for me some of it could have been cut out it bits that didn't permit to the story also it was a smidgen too slow also, but the bits that were good were really good, and i cannot wait for the rest of the series because Weirs writing and these Queens are a match made in Heaven.
Until Next Time
Happy Reading
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