My Review:
This is going to be the last book I read by this author if she chooses to publish more. So far I have given the three books 1, 2 and 3 stars and this one is back down again. It is the story of a 'friend' of Katherine Howard who knew her as they grew up together and came to serve her at Court. It focuses much more on the relationship between both girls and Frances Dereham than Katherine as Queen, which was disappointing.
Character development is non existant. Katherine Howard is an unpleasant, cold, snotty bitch through the early book, leaving her totally unlikable. When you are meant to feel sympathy for her, you just can't find any. The only thing that kept me going was knowing Katherine was going to the block herself. This book paints Katherine as villan not victim, which may or may not be true depending on which non fiction authors you choose to read but for a fiction story to have her so unpleasant goes against all written opinions of her. The most fascinating woman in Tudor history if you don't count Anne Boleyn, is Jane Rochford who hardly gets any time from the author, which is a real shame. In the early stages of the book, Katherine and Cat barely speak two words to each other and are hardly friends yet suddenly at Court they are BFF's and sharing dangerous secrets! I did not find this particularly believable. Henry Mannox is quite important to her downfall but he barely seems relevant with the way he was written. Even Thomas Culpepper is just a shadow of a character who should have been much more in the story.
The plot showing Katherine lying to save herself and sending Frances Dereham to the block, and Cat betraying her to save Frances was interesting enough but it was too little too late. There was too much useless waffle about Katherine arriving at the Dowager Duchess' house and how she changed things and who she fancied and fought with, and the boring thoughts of Cat and Jo. It was surprisingly dull stuff considering the real Katherine's antics at this time were a huge scandal for a girl her age. Somehow the author manages to turn the potentially exciting investigation into Katherine into something dull and lacklustre by having Frances saying 'I'm off to get questioned' and then Cat sits about all day waiting to see him then he appears and hardly says anything about what happened and off they go to bed. Yawn! The writing was boring, repetitive and unimaginative.
The modern language used in her books seems to upset a lot of Tudor fans but it doesn't really bother me one way or another to be honest. But I do hate the fact that she will not use the proper names for characters, preferring 'modern versions'.
If you want to read good stories about Katherine Howard I suggest you read 'The Boleyn Inheritance' by Philippa Gregory or 'The Tudor Wife' by Emily Purdy.
