The Queen’s Mistake: In the Court of Henry VIII

by Diane Haeger

Catherine Howard comes to the court of Henry VIII with the goal having fun and eventually settling down with a good husband of high social status.  Her ambitious family – specifically¸ her uncle the Duke of Norfolk – plan to elevate Catherine to the highest position in the land, the wife of Henry VIII.  There’s only a tiny snag…the King already has a Queen, the plain-faced but kind Anne of Cleves.  As Catherine happily flirts and falls in love with the handsomest courtier serving the King, Thomas Culpepper, her Howard relatives scheme to oust Anne and lead the King back to the Catholic faith with a youthful new bride.  When their plans succeed and Catherine marries the King, trouble starts almost immediately as her old friends and enemies converge on the court, demanding favors and special positions in return for their silence about Catherine’s secret dalliances in the past…

Catherine Howard’s been enjoying a resurgence in popularity; seems like the historical fiction/historical romance section of the bookstore is overflowing with new books about her.  Haeger’s is one of the best versions of her life that I have read.  Mostly told through the eyes of Catherine, Diane Haeger reveals a girl who is sweet and vivacious, but simply loves boys too much.  This Catherine enjoys flirting and attention, and feels no shame for it.  But she is loyal and kind, too; once married to Henry, she does her best to obey her marriage vows, which is no small feat when you’re a teenager and your husband is an obese man old enough to be your grandfather!  In this version of history, there was nothing Catherine could have done to save herself from her ultimate fate.  No matter how well behaved she was after marriage, she was condemned by her youthful indiscretions long before she ever met the King.  But even knowing that the cards are completely stacked against her, you can’t help but root for Catherine as she does her best to maneuver the web of deceit around her. 

The King’s Rose

by Alisa M. Libby

Catherine Howard is a member of one of the most powerful families in England, but she spent most of her life far from the King’s court in London. At Lambeth Palace she enjoyed more freedom and romantic liaisons, but now that she is fifteen her family has decided that the time has come for Catherine to be useful. She is brought to court to join the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, but when Henry VIII falls in desperate lust with young Catherine, his fourth wife is quickly brushed aside.  One royal wedding later, Catherine Howard is the Queen of England, but her position offers her little comfort or power. Her former acquaintances flock to her, threatening to reveal the indiscretions of the past if Catherine does not provide them with positions at court. Her family continues to control her actions, especially through Jane Rochford and the Duchess of Norfolk. Worst of all, Catherine has fallen in love with Thomas Culpepper, and their flirtation could bring the wrath of the king down on the entire court.

Henry VIII’s fifth queen, who was married to him for less than two years, is given a sympathetic portrayal in Alisa Libby’s novel. Catherine’s biggest fault is that she’s a teenager. She lacks the cleverness to navigate the complicated adult world of Henry’s court, and her inexperience in worldly affairs means that she cannot be a true political power. Her family makes it clear that if Catherine cannot hold the king’s attention, they’ll drop her like a stone…as they did with her cousin, Anne Boleyn.

This reminds me of something I liked about the book. When she is in moments of stress, Catherine is often haunted by the ghost of Anne Boleyn, although whether this phantom is the spirit of Anne or just a hallucination brought on by Catherine’s panic is never quite clear. I thought that Anne’s life would be something that Catherine would naturally fixate on, given the parallel lives the two women led, but this is the first novel about Catherine that really brought that into the narrative. It also highlights Catherine’s uneasiness with her position; while Anne was groomed for her role and motivated by her own vaulting ambitions, Catherine never particularly desired the throne.

Like Anne, Catherine also desperately needed to provide Henry VIII with an heir. Since she was young and healthy, there was no reason she shouldn’t bear a son, but as the months go by and Catherine still isn’t pregnant what little power she possesses begins to slip away. She’s clearly trapped, and even the extreme measures she takes to buy time only serve to condemn her to her ultimate fate. She’s a very tragic figure, this Catherine Howard; by all accounts she was utterly average and didn’t have the intellect, cunning, or ambition to survive the Tudor court. Yet at the end of her brief life, she was able to pull herself together enough to make a ‘good end’ on the scaffold, when more experienced courtiers descended into madness.

I think this is the third or fourth book about Catherine that I’ve read this year, and so far it is my favorite. I think it would appeal really well to a teen audience, since the readers would identify with Catherine’s struggles, but there’s enough drama and intrigue to delight adults too!

To read more about The King’s Rose, buy it or add it to your wishlist click here.

The Virgin’s Daughters: In the Court of Elizabeth I

by Jeane Westin

Queen Elizabeth, last of the Tudors, never married and gave birth to children. Her family became her ladies-in-waiting, whom she referred to as her “daughters” and often controlled their lives as a mother would. Without the Queen’s permission, they could not marry, and for two young ladies this became a terrible burden. 

Lady Katherine Grey is the unofficial heir presumptive to the English throne, of royal blood through her mother, who was a niece of Henry VIII. Plots to make her the official heir constantly form around her, but all Katherine wants is a quiet life in the country. After witnessing the brutal execution of her sister, Lady Jane Grey, the throne repels Katherine. As a youthful Queen Elizabeth flirts with Lord Dudley, Katherine falls in love with the handsome Earl of Hertford, but their love seems as doomed as Dudley’s aspirations to become King of England. Later, towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign, another lady-in-waiting¸ Mary Rogers, seeks to marry the man she loves, but the Queen’s lifelong spinsterhood has hardened her heart and it is unlikely she’ll grant permission for any of her ladies to wed.

While the narrative focuses on the thoughts of the two ladies-in-waiting, Katherine and Mary, it is Queen Elizabeth who ultimately stars in the narrative. The conflict between the desires of her heart and her desire to keep her power is a constant tension in the court. It’s horrible to see what this struggle does to the Queen as the years go by, as she grows bitter and isolated. It’s even worse to see how the lack of a husband influences her treatment of the women under her; one of the reasons Katherine cannot marry is that any children of hers would be potential threats to Elizabeth’s throne. But even though you are rooting for Katherine and Mary, you never quite lose your sympathy for Elizabeth.

If you like historical romances go out and grab this book! It’s a great read, and very engaging. Even though I’ve read novels about Elizabeth’s court before, Westin’s The Virgin’s Daughters was different enough that I felt exposed to a new side of the pomp and majesty of Tudor England. 

Sacred Hearts

by Sarah Dunant

An absorbing story of convent life in the sixteenth century, Sacred Hearts takes us inside the walls of Santa Caterina and the private lives of its nuns. (Assuming you can call the life in a convent ‘private’, which Sarah Dunant quickly shows is a dubious proposition when the slightest gossip can ripple through its residents in a manner of hours.) In the first few pages we meet our main characters, the dispensary mistress Suora Zuana and newest resident, Serafina. Brought to Santa Caterina against her will, Serafina is desperate to escape and reunite with her lover, but her beautiful singing makes her an asset the nunnery is loathe to lose. Suora Zuana befriends the miserable girl and begins teaching her the knowledge of herbs, which Zuana learned from her father many years before his death forced her into her current home. But even as Serafina begins to adjust to life in the convent, she is constantly planning and keeping her eyes open for opportunities to escape.

The politics and intrigue in this book are intense. You have scheming women and power struggles within the convent, as a nun named Umiliana tries to wrest the convent in a more Spartan, disciplined direction. She butts heads again and again with the abbess, a noblewoman well-versed in the art of collusion. Madonna Chiara, as the abbess is called, negotiates between the small world of the convent and the conflicts of the squabbling Italian noble families and the all-powerful Church, but one can never be sure if she’s serving the convent’s needs or her own desires. 

In my imagination, a convent is a place where women sit around all day praying and meditating on the cross, surviving on the charity of church donations to eat and drink. But Dunant’s richly populated novel depicts a community that is vibrant and bustling. The nuns earn coin making medicine in the dispensary for the bishop, and performing plays and concerts for Ferrara’s wealthy elite. Since many of the women are of noble families, they come to the convent with the luxuries of their rank. Rich silks and velvet are used in their garments, lovely dyes are used for clothes and to color sugary marzipan sweets, and pampered little lapdogs are even kept by a few women. But the Counter-Reformation seeks to cut out these worldly ‘extras,’ adding tension to a story already full of passion and repression.

I found Sacred Hearts to be quite entertaining. It has a bit of a slow start, and I think this is largely due to the introduction of so many characters right away. It took me a little while to keep all the nuns and their duties straight. But by the halfway point I was completely absorbed in the world of Santa Caterina. The book was only released two weeks ago, and it is already on nearly one hundred wishlists at Paperbackswap.com, so I bet this will be quite a popular book this summer.

To read more about Sacred Hearts, buy it or add it to your wishlist click here.

Murder of a Medici Princess

by Caroline P. Murphy

 

While not as famous as her relative Catherine in France, Isabella de’ Medici's life was just as interesting, especially as told by Caroline Murphy in this new biography. Daughter of Cosimo de’ Medici, the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, Isabella grew up surrounded by luxury during the high Italian Renaissance. She was especially close to her father, and the power of the Medici name allowed her to be educated and gained her an unusual amount of freedom for a woman of her time. Even marriage to a prominent Italian noble, Paolo Giordano Orsini, couldn’t slow her life of endless pleasure-seeking and partying. 

Murphy leads us every step of the way, introducing heroes and villains worthy of the epic poetry and ballads Isabella so loved, and plot twists worthy of a soap opera. Isabella was close to her family – almost too close, especially to her brother Giovanni and her father Cosimo, inspiring nasty rumors – and the power of her father allowed her to stay in Florence, rather than joining her husband in Rome. She fell in love with her cousin’s husband, the handsome Troilo Orsini, a man who charmed almost everyone he met, including thorny Catherine de’ Medici in France.   But all good times come to an end, and with Cosimo’s death Isabella’s rising star began to tumble and spiral out of control.

Murphy’s biography is rich with detail and images, including color plates in the middle of the book of Isabella, her siblings and lovers, and page after page of notes. Murphy never hems and haws with “Isabella may have done this” or “It is possible that Isabella met so-and-so,” which is one of my pet peeves in biographies. She’s done her research and can complete the world of the Medici court, but she doesn’t overwhelm the reader with ever little factoid she uncovered. She includes a lot of [translations of] Isabella’s letters, and other primary source documents whenever possible.

One of my favorite reads this year. Highly recommended for you history buffs out there.

            To read more about Murder of a Medici Princess,but it or add it to your wishlist, click here.

The Other Queen

by Philippa Gregory

I am a pretty big fan of Philippa Gregory’s historical fiction. (I’m never able to spell her name correctly, though. Always, I write Phillipa and have to go back and correct it.) Loved The Other Boleyn Girl. The Constant Princess was really good, too. The Virigin’s Lover and The Queen’s Fool were pretty fun. So I was looking forward to The Other Queen with my heart a-flutter.

It is the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, during her captivity in England. Her two ‘guardians’ are George and Elizabeth Talbot (today Elizabeth is better known as Bess of Hardwick.)  Their attitudes toward her could not be more different: George thinks it is a great honor to host the prisoner Queen, while Bess thinks it a bother and a huge waste of their money. Their conflicts about the prisoner only worsen with time, as George Talbot finds himself falling for the stunningly beautiful Queen of Scotland.

One of the most interesting conflicts in the book was the class differences between Bess and her husband, and how they informed their decision-making. Bess had come up from the merchant class, strategically marrying “up” with each husband (George Talbot was her fourth) and understood the value of money very well. She kept meticulous records of her assets and counted every penny. George grew up as a noble and never had to worry about money; he would just hold out his hand and cash would appear. He believes that the nobility are inherently better than “normal” people and can’t stand the idea of William Cecil having more power than him in Elizabeth’s court. Bess identifies with Cecil, and indeed acts as one his spies, because they both came from an ignoble background but have striven through cleverness and force of will to create a better life for themselves, rather than having titles handed to them by virtue of being born. 

Ultimately, though, I found the book extremely disappointing because the characters are so flat and one-dimensional. Bess Talbot is a shrew who counts her money and complains about expense. She is thoroughly unpleasant, and it’s little wonder her husband would be driven from her arms. Mary, Queen of Scots, is the most arrogant person you’d ever meet. Here are some excerpts from the first few pages of her narrative (the story is told by its three main characters, switching the point-of-view in alternating chapters):

They must be mad if they think they can treat me as an ordinary woman. I am no ordinary woman. I am half divine. I have a place of my own, a unique place, between the angels and nobles…

I am a queen three times over because I was born Queen of Scotland, daughter to King James V of Scotland, I was married to the Dauphin of France and inherited the French crown with him, and I am, in my own right, the only true and legitimate heir to the throne of England…

I deserve the highest place in the world…

I will wear nothing but my own beautiful clothes. I tell them that I will go in rags rather than wear anything but a queen’s wardrobe…

I am a queen; different rules apply for queens…

As a queen my person must be inviolate, my body is always holy, my presence is sacred. 

Imagine Mary going on like this for 300 pages, and you can see how tedious it would be. It’s really unfortunate that the two female characters are so wooden and flat; this could have been a fascinating relationship to explore. Instead they just internally bitch and whine for chapter after chapter.

Husband George is no better. When he isn’t bitching about Cecil’s England he wails about his love for Mary and how much he adores her with her goddess-like beauty. He comes off as a bubble-headed fool.

I mean, the book ought to be excited. There’s the subtle tension between prisoner and guardians, there’s intrigue in the courts, and action in Mary’s multiple escape attempts. But it’s plodding and boring.

Gregory really didn’t seem to put the effort into this book that have gone into her past novels. It kinda makes me wish she’d move on from the Tudor eraso that she can (hopefully) re-kindle her enthusiasm. But at the same time, I enjoy her Tudor novels, so I’m hoping this was just a bad egg and that a better novel will follow.

            To read more about The Other Queen,but it or add it to your wishlist, click here.

Mistress Shakespeare

by Karen Harper

            Primary documents relating to William Shakespeare’s life are few and far between, so much of what we know about his life is more legendary than based in historical fact. However, church records have shown that in November of 1582, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, a woman eight years his senior; only a few days before, a marriage license had been granted to Shakespeare to marry an Anne Whateley. Karen Harper’s novel Mistress Shakespeare proposes that this Anne Whateley was a real woman (not an alternative spelling of ‘Hathaway’ as some scholars have claimed) and Shakespeare’s muse, a secret first wife kept from his side by family politics and a pregnant Miss Hathaway. But true love can never be denied, and no matter how many times he disappoints her Anne Whateley eventually takes William back again. 

            Anne Whateley is fiercely independent, running her own business in London and constantly on the lookout for improving her business ventures. Yet she does not seem out of place in a world ruled by Queen Elizabeth, affectionately referred to as Glorianna by Mistress Whateley. That was a relief; too often historical fiction will feature women who are just too modern to mesh with their surroundings, and the narrative feels contrived and false. Not so in Mistress Shakespeare. 

            Throughout the books are scattered bits and pieces of Shakespeare lore, and references are made to his plays and contemporaries. While the story can certainly be read by a Shakespeare a novice, the more you know about the man and his work, the more you’ll get out of the reading. It’s a very detailed book, with a lot of attention to the tense political climate and intrigues carried out within the theatre. Mistress Shakespeare is entertaining and a fun ‘What-if?’ addition to tales of William Shakespeare.

            To read more about Mistress Shakespeare, but it or add it to your wishlist, click here.

A Constant Heart

by Siri Mitchell

            Born the daughter of a wealthy merchant, Marget thought her family had made a perfect match when she married the Earl of Lytham. Uniting her family’s wealth and the earl’s title will make Marget a countess and grant her a place at court…but it soon becomes clear that her husband and the other courtiers dislike her. All Marget wants is to find the love she found expressed in the sonnet the earl wrote for her when they became engaged, and she is willing to take whatever steps are necessary to make the marriage succeed.

            Nicholas, the Earl of Lytham, had such a disastrous first marriage that he no longer feels he can trust any woman. When he sees his new bride for the first time, he is horrified by her beauty – for a beautiful woman cannot have a constant heart, and will never remain faithful. He stubbornly resists all evidence that his wife is a good woman, avoiding her both at court and in the home.

            The feasts may be sumptuous and the gowns may be exquisite, but Siri Mitchell captures the loneliness of court life under a Queen. Women can be beautiful, but they cannot outshine the Queen, who must remain the focus of every man’s desire. As the women of the court seek to imitate Queen Elizabeth’s red hair and white skin – the only way the Queen will accept their presence – Mitchell reveals the detrimental effects lead cosmetics have on their health. There’s a brief moment where Marget starts to eat a nut, only to realize every other woman is having only custards or jellies; these references to the effects of lead poisoning help create an undercurrent of creepiness that pervades all of Marget’s experiences at court. 

            I thought that characterization of Nicholas was a little unstable at times. His irrational desire for an ugly wife – or at least, his irritation with Marget for being pretty – is quite ridiculous at times. I have trouble imagining that a guy would really make such a big deal about it…but men get pretty darn crazy when their pride is involved. He also seemed to have a few very sudden mood swings, and there would seem a disconnect between the Nicholas of one chapter and the next. But he had his adorable moments. There’s an incredibly cute scene at State dinner where the gathered courtiers are served a love salad, a dish in which each plant in the salad having a secret meaning, and Nicholas and Marget are finally able to converse through the plants. It was a very silly but very fun flirtation.

            It’s a very fun story, and it was actually quite refreshing to read a book set in the Elizabethan court that was not about Elizabeth or one of her famous intimates. Viewing the court from the perspective of a minor courtier was an interesting change from the usual.

The Aviary Gate: A Novel
by Katie Hickman


Elizabeth Staveley discovers a mysterious fragment of manuscript, the first page of an account of a woman kidnapped at sea.  She has been researching captivity accounts, and is fascinated and sets off on a quest to determine what happened to this Celia Lamprey.

As Elizabeth searches for Celia in our modern era, the book flies to the harem of the Sultan in Constantinople, 1599.  A poison attempt has killed one of the concubines and nearly offed the chief of the eunuchs.  The power struggles between the Sultan's mother and his favored concubine lead to intrigues  and cover-ups, a furious secret activity that Celia Lamprey is thrust into when she is brought forward by the Sultan's mother to be a new favorite for the Sultan (fat and flairless and seemingly oblivious to the furious rivalries and backstabbing surrounding the women of his palace.)

Paul Pindar, a merchant bringing a fancy clock to the Sultan, was once engaged to Celia.  When one of his staff members sees her in the Sultan's palace, will Pindar be able to free the woman he loves?

Confused yet?
Katie Hickman's novel is beautifully rendered and lush with life.  As she describes the pleasure garden of the Sultan Valide, you can hear the breeze whispering in the trees and smell the heavy perfume of the roses.  The exquisite instruments of the Valide's favored astronomer/alchemist are as easy to imagine as the sumptuous sweetmeats and silks the concubines delight in.  The ancient world of Constantinople is exquisitely imagined and it's clear that a lot of research went into this work. 

In comparison, Hickman's renderings of modern-day Turkey and Elizabeth's quest to forget her lover in England and find Celia are intrusive and vague.  Her "research" of Celia relies heavily on intuition and little psychic visions; her constant longing for her lover (who doesn't notice she's gone for weeks) is distracting, and detracts from the main story in the past.  Had Hickman abandoned this Mary-Sue-esque character and kept her account solely in 1599, the story would have been much stronger.  As it is presented, The Aviary Gate simply has too much going on in too few pages.  The many, many different story-lines make it difficult to fully realize several of the main characters, and the flurry of activity can get confusing at times.

That said, Hickman does a wonderful job immersing the reader into the past.  The richness of Hickman's descriptions will transport you to the world of the Sultan's harem.

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Well, that's going to be my Amazon.com review up there.  Additional thoughts:

I really, really dislike the current trend of interlacing historical incidents with current researchers.  It's something I first noticed in The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, but at the time I didn't mind it much because that whole series is dippy cheesecake fun anyway.  But I'm seeing it more and more, and it's getting rather ridiculous.  Elizabeth Staveley adds absolutely nothing to the book.  She's whiny, she's lonely, she thinks constantly about her jerk lover Marius; she's that irritating girlfriend you always feel a bit sorry for and listen to her complaints with sympathy, but roll your eyes because she's telling a story she's told at least five times before with a different man playing the title roll.  In other words, she never learns.  Ugh.

It's mildly entertaining, but I'm pretty sure there's better books with the same theme.  Go read one of those.

Buy the book on Amazon.com, or add it to your wishlist.

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