Series - The Tudor Court Series
Author - Philippa Gregory
ISBN - 978-1-471-3297-1
My Copy - Purchased
Rating - 4 / 5
Where You Can Find It - Goodreads - Amazon UK / USA
Genre - Adult - Historical Fiction
So where should i start with this book, how about with the tag line. "Why would a woman marry a serial killer? Because she cannot refuse..." that got me hooked in a second, because we are so used to reading about Henry VIII as this young hansom Prince and not the old tyrant he becomes. This book brought a light to a wife we don't know much about, even her name is up for debate is it Katherine or Kateryn.So lets delve into the last few years of Henry VIII's Reign
Chapter 1 begins in spring of 1543 at Hampton court palace where Henry Proposes to Kateryn and because you cannot say no to the king she just act like it is an honer and that she doesn't deserve it and that she needs a little time for it to sink in, Henry agrees and lets her go back to her chamber.
Kateryn goes to her lover Thomas Seymour and sneaks into his room after midnight to say goodbye because she is not foolish enough to have an affair like the previous wife Katherine Howard.
Kateryn goes on with her life as she becomes queen and has to bed this horrible smelly man who is old enough to be her father and man who has already buried 4 wives, two of whom he beheaded, 1 who died of a broken heat and his sweetheart Queen Jane who he left alone to die after giving birth to his son, so she was right to be careful. We get a glimpse of how Elizabeth got the idea that she could rule as a woman on her own. so that is all i am going to tell you about the book because there is a lot of heartache and emotions and scenes that i don't want to spoil so now onto my thoughts on the book.
So when i first starting reading this book i was a little blegh because i had finished The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir a month previous and that painted Kateryn and Thomas as the bad guys so reading about their love was a tad weird but then you really got a sense for the characters an you see the struggle she has had her entire life, being married 3 times all to men who were not adequate for her, a man who was afraid of his own shadow, a man who she was more of daughter and nurse to then too and then to a tyrant who could execute her at his will. There was one part in this book that actually made me hate Henry a little bit and that was when he punished Kateryn and the play he wrote"The Taming of The Queen" was horrible but at the same time that was the law in Tudor times. Even though the religion kept on changing back and forth from protestant to catholic, it was tough times for a secret reformist as a queen in a court where it was heresy to believe different from the king.Kateryn who was a scholar wrote and published many books that were deemed as heretic matirial. I love that throughout Gregory's books and series she keeps one thing the same, the curse that Henry's mum put on the family that murdered her brothers in the tower they shall die out and end with a virgin woman and this curse that started in The White Queen and has been mentioned in most of the books since if you read them in Time order (not the order they were published but time era chronologically) this time Henry mentions it "And people say terrible things. They say there is a curse, they speak of a curse, they say such things - a curse on Tudor boys, on our line."
Overall this book was a very good read, I definitely look at Henry VIII a little differently now than i did when i first learnt about him but you need all sides of a story and unfortunately that is something we may never know.
Until Next Time
Happy Reading
