Book Review: I have always been heavily into the British aristocracy! Especially Henry VIII and his daughters Bloody Mary & Elizabeth I. By then I had devoured most all of Phillippa Greggory's historical novels that dealt with this subject and was looking for something along the same lines. My search produced Alison Weir. I was sceptical at first being fearcely loyal to my favorite authors, but the moment I started reading Innocent Traitor I was hooked.
Lady Jane Grey is such a small interruption in the whole scheme of the Tudor dynasty's historic machinations that she is famously overlooked and little explored! But in this fantastic portrayal of this brave and unwitting queen Weir embroiders a tapestry of intrigue, heart-wrenching innocence and the fickle hand of destiny for this young woman who in her 17 years was ever propelled to her ultimate demise.
A great read in the fashion of Phillippa Greggory. If you enjoy the works of this author, you will enjoy Weir!
Book Synopsis: Popular biographer Weir (Eleanor of Aquitaine, etc.) makes her historical fiction debut with this coming-of-age novel set in the time of Henry VIII. Weir's heroine is Lady Jane Grey (1537–1554), whose ascension to the English throne was briefly and unluckily promoted by opponents of Henry's Catholic heir, Mary. As Weir tells it, Jane's parents, the Marquess and Marchioness of Dorset, groom her from infancy to be the perfect consort for Henry's son, Prince Edward, entrusting their daughter to a nurse's care while they attend to affairs at court. Jane relishes lessons in music, theology, philosophy and literature, but struggles to master courtly manners as her mother demands. Not even the beheadings of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard deter parental ambition. When Edward dies, Lord and Lady Dorset maneuver the throne for their 16-year-old daughter, risking her life as well as increased violence between Protestants and Catholics. Using multiple narrators, Weir tries to weave a conspiratorial web with Jane caught at the center, but the ever-changing perspectives prove unwieldy: Jane speaking as a four-year-old with a modern historian's vocabulary, for example, just doesn't ring true. But Weir proves herself deft as ever describing Tudor food, manners, clothing, pastimes (including hunting and jousting) and marital politics. (Mar.) Synopsis Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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