The second book in this series about Tudor England starts with execution of Lady Jane Grey. The story alternates between Jane’s sisters Mary Grey and Katherine Grey. Mary is misshapen and used as a doll or pet by both Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, and Katherine is pretty and flighty. The character of the narrator is court painter Levinia Teerlinc. Katherine spends most of the book in the Tower of London, having married without Queen Elizabeth’s permission, and possibly mixed up in a plot to […]
The Survivor
I am fascinated by Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth’s eras in history, and I enjoy historical fiction, but I am not a big fan of Phillipa Gregory’s works from this time period. I picked these up in the hopes that these would be better written and better edited. The first book tells the tale of Queen Katherine, who has the distinction not only to have avoided the chopping block, but actually survived Henry’s reign. Katherine is pursued by Henry shortly after the death of her […]
Soaring through History
I decided to read this book because I saw a description of Uprooted, and thought it looked interesting, but I hadn’t read anything else by Naomi Novik, so I started with this series. I’m glad I did. This book is set during the Napoleonic Wars but has dragons that form an Aerial Corps There are many more dragons on the French side than the British side, so when Captain Will Laurence discovers a egg that is about to hatch aboard a French ship he and […]
Taking the Romance out of the Victorian Era
I picked this book based on a recommendation from NPR’s Book Concierge for 2014., under the category For History Lovers. It’s a very long, very detailed book. I did some research on the author afterwards and learned that she did live the life of a Victorian for a BBC show called Victorian Farm. So when she talks about what it was like to wear period clothes and use a scythe, she had that experience for a year. The book discusses everything from the morning wash […]