Friday 2 November 2007

The Kings Pleasure by Norah Lofts

Katharine of Aragon is a proud Spanish beauty who became Queen of England. From the moment of Katharine's betrothal to Arthur, Prince of Wales, she looked upon herself as the future Queen of England.

But, Arthur died just after their marriage and it was as the wife of his brother, Henry VIII, that she went to her Coronation. This delightful, richly tapestried novel tells of her life with Henry - the many happy years; the birth of their daughter, Mary Tudor; her popularity with the people and, above all, her constant and unswerving love for the King.

But after nearly twenty years, Henry - his eyes affixed firmly on the ambitious young Anne Boleyn - repudiated their marriage, submitted Katharine to the humilations of a 'trial' and banished her from his life.

This majority of this centres around Katherine's marriage to Henry, I was a bitb disappointed as I was hoping it would have more of her marriage with Arthur but, that said this was a very enjoyable read, Norah has definitely done some pretty good research here.

Obviously, there can be comparisons to Philippa Gregorys book of this period but, these are so different, I so did not dislike this book I just found it much different from other Tudor fiction, I didn't feel the atmosphere of life back there, this book asn't so descriptive and I didn't feel I got to know the characters as well.

Probably its wrong to make comparisons as thats easy to do, I felt this was more like a non-fiction book written as a novel if that makes sense, well I know what I mean LOL

Overall an interesting read just don't expect anything like Philippa Gregory, Jean Plaidy et al.

2 comments:

Daphne said...

I have read some Norah Lofts that I really liked (The Concubine) and others, not so much (Eleanor the Queen). I have this book coming from PaperBack Swap so I'll read it at some point.

Margo. said...

This is one I want to read, I love Katharine of Aragon, but like you Clare I want to read about her and Arthur, like Philippa did in The Constant Princess.