Wednesday 9 April 2008

Murder Most Royal by Jean Plaidy

Synopsis

At the decadent French court of King Francois, the young Anne Boleyn grows into an enigmatic and striking woman, a temptation to many courtiers. But whilst Anne's ambitions are high, she has learned from her sister's unfortunate reputation. Unlike Mary, Anne refuses to become even a King's mistress. So when Anne returns to the English court of Henry VIII, it is the King who is led a dance by this mysterious young beauty. Before long Henry is lured away from his stale marriage to Katharine of Aragon. But the new Queen Anne is not loved by the people, and it is only a matter of time before Henry's patience runs out...

My View

This period with Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard is in my opinion one of the most fascinating in history and they are definitely two of my favourite of Henry's Queens.

I was rather expecting this to be a little different as in Anne's story seperate to katherine's but, we see Katherine appear from quite a young age and I really liked that, I've only in the past read books about Katherine shortly before she became Queen.

This is a riveting read but, there are some inaccuracies with saying that Anne slept with Henry before they married and Ms Plaidy's descriptions of Jane Seymour were a little bit much (IMO).

I am leaving the Tudors behind for a while as much I love this era I have saturated this part of Tudor history but, of courtse shall return!

2 comments:

Daphne said...

I haven't read this one yet, but sounds like it's pretty good.

Anonymous said...

I do love this one, but I'm afraid you got one fact wrong in your review. Anne did sleep with Henry before they got married. That's why they married before Henry's marriage was officially annulled.