Anne of Cleves: She runs from her tiny country, her hateful mother, and her abusive brother to a throne whose last three occupants are dead. King Henry VIII, her new husband, instantly dislikes her. Without friends, family, or even an understanding of the language being spoken around her, she must literally save her neck in a court ruled by a deadly game of politics and the terror of an unpredictable and vengeful king. Her Boleyn Inheritance: accusations and false witnesses.
Katherine Howard: She catches the king's eye within moments of arriving at court, setting in motion the dreadful machine of politics, intrigue, and treason that she does not understand. She only knows that she is beautiful, that men desire her, that she is young and in love -- but not with the diseased old man who made her queen, beds her night after night, and killed her cousin Anne. Her Boleyn Inheritance: the threat of the axe.
Jane Rochford: She is the Boleyn girl whose testimony sent her husband and sister-in-law to their deaths. She is the trusted friend of two threatened queens, the perfectly loyal spy for her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, and a canny survivor in the murderous court of a most dangerous king. Throughout Europe, her name is a byword for malice, jealousy, and twisted lust. Her Boleyn Inheritance: a fortune and a title, in exchange for her soul.
The Boleyn Inheritance is a novel drawn tight as a lute string about a court ruled by the gallows and three women whose positions brought them wealth, admiration, and power as well as deceit, betrayal, and terror. Once again, Philippa Gregory has brought a vanished world to life -- the whisper of a silk skirt on a stone stair, the yellow glow of candlelight illuminating a hastily written note, the murmurs of the crowd gathering on Tower Green below the newly built scaffold. In The Boleyn Inheritance Gregory is at her intelligent and page-turning best.
For someone who prides herself as an avid reader of Tudor fiction, the only novels I really ever read were related to Anne Boleyn or her daughter Elizabeth. This was my first try at reading of Henry VIII's fourth and fifth queens, Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard, and Anne's notoriously 'crazy' sister-in-law, Jane Rochford. Out of the gate what I enjoyed was how Gregory tied in constantly references to Anne's story, memories of her, as though she's watching it all and is still a part of the story, hence the title. So much has changed in this novel since The Other Boleyn Girl, a.k.a. the times of Anne Boleyn and yet so much has remained the same; court-life is as glamorous and fun to read about as ever, and Anne stands practically a ghost giving depth, life, and excitement to The Boleyn Inheritance.
What I did not enjoy about the novel was its speed; it moved far too quickly. Anne of Cleves arrives in England, and after that it's a blur. She's cast aside and there are good as no events of her 'reign' given. Henry VIII too soon falls in love with Katherine Howard, if you could even call it love, and in the blink of the eye they're married. It's difficult for one to believe that the story was rushed being 518 pages; however there was just not enough of Katherine's almost two-year reign, nor was there enough regarding her dramatic fall. I also disliked how after her marriage to Henry is annulled, Anne of Cleves good as disappears from the story, or whatever happens in her point-of-view chapters are insignificant. I feel as though her character is needed only briefly at the beginning when she is Queen and briefly at the end, to show what the people outside of court are hearing about Katherine Howard, and to give some sort of epilogue of how the rest of Henry VIII's life went. If this was the last of Gregory's Henry VIII related novels, I think she could have expanded on Catherine Parr's own 'Boleyn inheritance'.
I definitely had my issues with The Boleyn Inheritance but there is no denying that Gregory's writing is tasteful and engaging as ever and her talents at bringing together history and romance continue to shine. I can't say that I would recommend this as a necessary Tudor read, but it's a fun adventure through Henry VIII's wives, court, and times and a novel worth reading.
Statistics
Pages: 518
Publisher: Touchstone
Year Published: 2006
Kylie's Rating: ♛♛♛/♛♛♛♛♛ (3/5 Stars)
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