Pages: 183
Released: 1972, re-released May 16, 2016
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Received: ARC from publisher, via NetGalley
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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I think Maureen Peters is going to be a Jean Plaidy kind of author for me: a historical fiction choice that never impresses but always delivers a consistently ok book.
By this point, I'm well familiar with Henry VIII and his six wives, so this version didn't off anything new, which is unsurprising considering it's under 200 pages and spans all six wives.
I wish Maureen Peters had spent more time on each event instead of speeding through them and glossing over major events and blocks of time. When she took a moment to pause, I really enjoyed her writing and her characters came to life. But these pauses were always short lived and gave the book a very unfinished feeling, like she intended to write a much longer novel but ended up publishing a draft outline version instead.
There were a few historical inaccuracies, which were bad enough to elicit eye-rolls but not frequent enough to get me to DNF. I wouldn't worry about them too much since even most Tudor dilettantes will spot them easily and novices would be better served with a different book to introduce them to the Tudors anyway. This one jumps around too much to be all that great for someone who can't fill in the gaps themselves.
I have another Maureen Peters book on my TBR and this one was strong enough, despite its flaws, that I'm looking forward to reading more of her books.
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Have you read Margaret George's book on Henry VIII told from the pov of his court jester? I had my eye on it, but because of its size I keep putting it off.
ReplyDeleteI haven't! Actually, I have eyeballed a few of her books, bt I haven't read any of them yet because they're all so long. You just made me feel better for doing that! lol :)
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