Sunday, May 17, 2009

The Constant Princess and The Boleyn Inheritance

Let me begin by saying that I loved both of these books!

The Constant Princess tells the Story of Katherine Of Aragon. It tells the story in complete first person, and starts out when she was the Infanta of Spain. What I enjoyed most about this book is that it gave details about her life before coming to England, and what it was like to be the daughter of the King and Queen of Spain. I just wish this book had been longer. It was concentrated a lot on her early life with her parents, Aurther and Henry when he was younger. I wish it had gone into details about her life in exile from the court.

The Boleyn Inheritance is the story of Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Jane Boleyn. I wasn't sure if I would like this book, because in the Other Boleyn Girl, I hated Jane Boleyn, and thought why should she get her own story? After reading how her life was intertwined with so many Queens of England, I can see why her story was told. This book was probably my favorite book in the entire series. It was once again written in first person, and the problem I have with telling the story of three different characters is that most of the time I only like one. The stories blend togehter really well, and I found myself wanting more of each one.

Ms. Gregory said she wanted to tell the story of Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard because out of all of Henry the VIIIs wives, these were the two that were written the least about, but the public feels like they knows a lot about them. I had no idea how young Katherine was when she came to the throne~I couldn't imagine being 15 and married to some who was 46 and such a tyrant.

I highly recommend all the books in this series! However, I don't recommend reading them before bed. All the beheading gives way to really weird dreams!