He was King Henry VIII, a charismatic and extravagant ruler
obsessed with both his power as king and with siring a male heir.
They were his queens--six ill-fated women, each bound for
divorce, or beheading, or death.
Watch spellbound as each of Henry's wives attempts to
survive their unpredictable king and his power-hungry court. See the sword
flash as fiery Anne Boleyn is beheaded for adultery. Follow Jane Seymour as she
rises from bullied court maiden to beloved queen, only to die after giving
birth. Feel Catherine Howard's terror as old lovers resurface and whisper
vicious rumors to Henry's influential advisors. Experience the heartache of
mothers as they lose son after son, heir after heir.
Told in stirring first-person accounts, Fatal Throne is at once
provocative and heartbreaking, an epic tale that is also an intimate look at
the royalty of the most perilous times in English history.
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade | Genre: Historical Fiction | Source: Publisher | Rating: 2 Cups
I’m always up for any type of Tudor book be it fiction or
nonfiction, so when Fatal Throne: The
Wives of Henry VIII Tell All was
offered for review, I jumped at the chance.
This one’s a bit different from the standard Henry VIII
fiction I’ve read. First, it’s a young adult book geared for ages 12 and up (I
didn’t realize when I accepted this book for review that it was a YA book).
Second, it’s divided into six sections (one section for each wife), each broken
down, almost diary-like, with a short section revealing Henry VIII’s thoughts
on each of his wives.
Before I get into my review, I do want to say that this
reads a bit older than your standard YA 12 and up book. This takes you inside
Henry VIII’s court so there is blood, death, beheadings, and sex. If you’ve
read The King’s Rose by Alisa M. Libby, this book is on the same level.
Getting into my review, I just wasn’t impressed with this
one. While having seven writers gave this book a unique perspective, it also
made it feel disjointed, take for example Fleming portraying Katherine of
Aragon as the silent type yet Sandell had her railing at Henry, which was truer
to history.
I didn’t feel as though any of the authors captured the
essence of these six queens or of Henry VIII. At times, the history was very
askew and let’s not forget that somehow the editor and authors failed to notice
that the last entry from Catherine Parr is dated 1846-1847, so did she time
travel all the way from the 1500s? Also, why was this subtitled as ‘The Wives
of Henry VIII Tell All’ when, in fact, very little of their lives were
revealed.
Fleming reduced Katherine of Aragon to this whiny, woe-is-me
type when, in fact, she was the daughter of a warrior queen. Katherine was a
very strong woman who wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself and I feel like
this book slighted her strong-willed character. Out of all of Henry’s wives,
she, I feel was the strongest. She did a lot of things that Henry couldn’t. And
she was also his longest marriage, so there was no way her story could be told
in 50 pages. Also, the whole Nun of Kent debacle was just plain weird.
While I found Anne’s story to be the best in the book, I
wasn’t too impressed with how Hemphill turned Anne into a regretful loon. Yes,
she was a bit manic when she was arrested and during her imprisonment but I
don’t believe she was ever regretful of her actions, especially regarding her
treatment of Mary. Also, I found it odd that the author made no mention of
Thomas Wyatt while talking of those arrested along with Anne for adultery. Out
of all the men arrested, he was the one who had a previous relationship with
Anne and likely had an affair with her during her marriage to Henry.
Sandell’s Jane wasn’t too bad. There’s a lot of backstory in
Jane’s story, it made it a bit boring, but I’ve always found Jane to have been
a bit of a bore. And the fact that time timeline in the story was a bit
shuffled about was a bit irksome.
I was surprised that Jennifer Donnelly’s take on Anne of
Cleves was rather a letdown. I’ve always enjoyed Donnelly’s writing in the past
so I’m not sure what happened with this one. It did have a nice gothic vibe to
it with ghosts coming to Anne during her last days telling her she had unfinished
business. Sadly, when it came time to reveal Anne’s unfinished business, it was
a major disappointment and so far out of the realm of believability that all I could
do was roll my eyes and try not to chuck the book in the bin. I also didn’t
care for the way Anne and Henry’s relationship was portrayed. Henry was
actually kind to Anne and she lived rather well as the King’s honorary sister
so the fact that the author was bent to portraying Henry as a tyrant just didn’t
work for me.
Park did rather a decent job telling Catherine Howard’s
story. It’s your basic retelling of her life. She captured the naivety and
stupidity that Catherine had. She also captured the way that Catherine was a
pawn for the Howard family.
I thought Hopkinson did a brilliant job with the story of
Henry’s last queen although I felt like she hid Catherine Parr’s manipulative
side under a rug. In the end, I felt like she did a nice job capturing her
reign as queen and some of her actions. Still it was nothing to write home
about.
I didn’t care for Anderson’s interpretation of Henry at all.
It doesn’t fit with Henry. It started off bad with him having an affair when
Katherine was in labor and just went downhill from there. I cringed the entire
time I was reading Henry’s POV. People tend to forget two major things when I comes
to Henry VIII. The first being, he was a bit of a prude—there’s only two
confirmed mistresses he had—and he often reprimanded courtiers for bawdy jokes.
The second being, he was a second son raised for life in the church rather than
life as a king so when they have Henry prat on about how he was raised from
birth to rule, it just falls flat.
To cap this one off, there’s a snippet from Elizabeth at the
end. I hate when authors only include Elizabeth and gloss over the fact Henry
had two other legitimate children who inherited the throne.
Overall, this one wasn’t my cuppa tea. Perhaps if I was a
Tudor newbie I would have enjoyed this more than I did but, for me, I couldn’t
mesh the characters in this book to their real-life counterparts. Considering
the forward in this book states that the authors went to great pains ‘trying to
decipher their souls’ and read through diaries, papers, proclamations, writs,
depositions, etc., I was expecting so
much more.
M. T. Anderson – Henry VIII
Candace Fleming – Katharine of Aragon
Stephanie Hemphill – Anne Boleyn
Lisa Ann Sandell – Jane Seymour
Jennifer Donnelly – Anna of Cleves
Linda Sue Park – Catherine Howard
Deborah Hopkinson – Kateryn Parr
