“From the bestselling author of "The Other Boleyn
Girl" comes a wonderfully atmospheric evocation of the court of Henry
VIII, and the one woman who destroyed two of his queens. The year is 1539 and
the court of Henry VIII is increasingly fearful at the moods of the ageing sick
king. With only a baby in the cradle for an heir, Henry has to take another
wife and the dangerous prize of the crown of England is won by Anne of Cleves.
She has her own good reasons for agreeing to marry a man old enough to be her
father, in a country where to her both language and habits are foreign.
Although fascinated by the glamour of her new surroundings, she senses a trap
closing around her. Catherine is confident that she can follow in the steps of
her cousin Anne Boleyn to dazzle her way to the throne but her kinswoman Jane
Boleyn, haunted by the past, knows that Anne's path led to Tower Green and to
an adulterer's death. The story of these three young women, trying to make
their own way through the most volatile court in Europe at a time of religious
upheaval and political uncertainty is Philippa Gregory's most intense novel
yet.”
This book was written in a style much closer to what I remember The
Other Boleyn Girl to be than The
Constant Princess. The writing was captivating, lively, and easy to
follow. Her characters were interesting and the story was
well-paced. Again, I was reading these a bit out of order, but it did not
matter all that much since I am already rather familiar with this period in
British history. This book takes place after the conclusion of The
Other Boleyn Girl. It was interesting to see what happens in the aftermath
of Anne Boleyn’s beheading; even more so to see things from the perspective of
another character who had been in the background of The
Other Boleyn Girl, Jane Boleyn - as well as the mentioning of names we
recognize from The Constant Princess. The
Boleyn Inheritance was told
from three different perspectives: Jane Boleyn (widow of Anne Boleyn’s
brother, George), Anne of Cleves (one of Henry VIII’s “lucky” wives, and Katherine
Howard (a cousin of Anne Boleyn and another wife of Henry VIII). Of the
three, I think Anne of Cleves’ perspective was the most interesting. I
enjoyed learning more about her background and seeing her as something other
than the what I had previously learned in history courses; that she was a woman
so ugly and with such poor hygiene that Henry VIII could not bear to be married
to her – though more historians are now in agreement that this was probably not
the case. I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for her after seeing from
where she had come and what she had to endure – of course, this is a work of
fiction, but Gregory’s writing was so realistic and enthralling. Jane Boleyn
was interesting, too. We learned very little about her in The
Other Boleyn Girl other than
the facts that she was married to George, Anne and Mary’s older brother (who
was also executed), and she and the Boleyns did not care for one another – she was
jealous of the Boleyn sisters’ close relationship with her husband and it is
hinted that this led her to testify against them. She was also portrayed
as a bit of a sexual deviant (I am unsure how else to describe her creepy interest
in the sex lives of others and her oft-described sexual appetite for her poor
husband). Her cold, calculating demeanor
became unnerving in this book – something of which we caught glimpses in the
second book in the series. This really helped to bring the story to life
and showed the ways in which women were expected to manipulate others and
events in order to further their respective family’s aims. This echoes The Other Boleyn Girl a bit in this fashion. Katherine (Kitty) Howard’s perspective was interesting
because I think Gregory did an excellent job of tapping into the mind of a
teenage girl. She’s very self-absorbed and believes herself
invincible. She sees only pretty things and lives in a materialistic
world. Surely nothing bad can happen to a pretty girl such as
herself? Her naiveté was well-written and believable.
Overall, the story was captivating, well-written, and
very interesting. I thought it was an
appropriate follow-up to The Other Boleyn
Girl and I enjoyed it a great deal. At
first, I thought the book was going to feel (forgive my language) half-assed
because Gregory “couldn’t come up with enough material to devote a full book to
each of these characters,” but this was far from what I experienced. The pacing was good, the characters were
interesting, and I would recommend this as a great installment in the Tudor Court
series.
No comments:
Post a Comment