Tuesday 21 April 2009

Plain Jane by Laurien Gardner

SYNOPSIS
With a face better suited to a nun’s habit than a wedding dress, Jane Seymour has no suitors and few hopes. Then, her prospects brighten when she is granted a position at court as maid of honor to Queen Catherine. There, Jane watches as King Henry VIII ignores his aging wife, showering favor on the beautiful Anne Boleyn, the woman he would make his new queen.

But soon he tires of Anne and his wandering eye falls on Jane. Though she has feelings of affection for Henry, she cannot let herself be swept away by his attentions if she is to win not only his heart, but also the greatest prize of all—the Crown.

MY VIEW

I really, really liked this. Jane Seymour is one of the wives not much written about in my experience and not that I am sure this is the greatest book but, it did provide me with some insight into this little known (to me) Queen, as I've said in other posts I mostly read about Anne Boleyn and I always just thought of Jane Seymour as the one Henry married so quickly after Anne died and who bore his only (legitimate) son.

I can't say as an Anne Boleyn sympathiser I had great sympathy for Jane but, although I understand this book is historically inaccurate I did quite feel for her with her parents in her early years not thinking so greatly of her and she did seem quite insecure.

A very easy to read and light book and I liked the fact is was written from Jane's POV.

3 comments:

Daphne said...

I read this a couple of years ago and thought it wasn't too bad - especially since there are so few books written about Jane.

Kailana said...

It's too bad that they only wrote about three wives instead of the six that was originally planned.

Marg said...

I bought all three books in this series when they first came out. Still haven't read them!