Rosie’s #BookReview Team #RBRT THE LADY ANNE by G Lawrence @TudorTweep #Tudors #HistFic

Today’s team review is from Noelle, she blogs at http://saylingaway.wordpress.com

Noelle has been reading The Lady Anne by G Lawrence

Book Review: The Lady Anne by Gemma Lawrence @TudorTweep for #RBRT #historical fiction

The Lady Anne is the second book in the Above All Others series about the life of Anne Boleyn by Gemma Lawrence. The first book, La Petite Boulain, which I also reviewed, concerns the early years of Anne’s life, beginning with her happy childhood at Hever Castle in Kent and her education in the courts of France. This volume concerns Anne’s life and loves from her return home to when she falls in love with Henry VIII.

When Anne returns to England on the orders of her father, she is scheduled to become a lady-in-waiting to Queen Katherine, wife of Henry VIII. During her first days at her family home at Hever, acclimatizing to a land she hardly knows, she meets Thomas Wyatt, a neighbor whom she played with as a child. Thomas is an accomplished poet and a close friend of King Henry and falls in love with the talented, accomplished and stylish Anne. However, he is married, and Anne rejects him, wanting to be his friend, but the rejection is taken badly and it shapes some aspects of her life at court. At court she meets the young Henry Percy, with whom she falls in love, projecting onto him some of the innocence she still feels. Their intended engagement is thwarted, and from there the inevitable unwinds when Henry notices her and becomes besotted.

As with the first book, I liked the exceptional historical detail, from the food to the clothing to courtly romance, and the minutiae of life in that age – even to the way members of court and others smelled. Courtiers bathed more than most, but the fact the Queen often wore a hair shirt and how that led to her musky and repulsive odor was something new that wrinkled my nose! The politics of Henry’s royal courts, which defined everyone’s life and fate, is laid out in detail in terms of how it affected Anne and her family.

I also found that more than with La Petite Boulain, Anne becomes a rounded character, petty and venal, but also thoughtful and caring. The multiple sides of her personality made her real – not always likeable, but very human.

Above all, The Lady Anne is a love story, one that is hard to ignore. As the attraction between Henry and Anne grows, this reader found herself shaking her head at Anne’s determination to guard her honor and not become the King’s mistress, as her sister had been, worrying at what Henry would do in response to her audaciousness. Even though I knew how it would turn out. Such is the power of the author’s writing.

The Lady Anne is heavy in exposition, and particularly noticeable are the dialogue dumps – conversation from one side that last a page or more. There are also repetitions of facts and ideas. I will freely admit I skipped over the repetitions and skimmed the overlong conversations.

Nevertheless, the story has a fascination, especially so for this Tudor fan, that holds one’s attention. I was immersed in Anne’s life more than with the first volume, and I look forward to reading the third.

I purchased this book and reviewed it as a member of Rosie’s Book Review Team.

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT THE LADY ANNE by G Lawrence @TudorTweep #Tudors #HistFic

Today’s team review is from Olga, she blogs at http://www.authortranslatorolga.com

Olga has been reading The Lady Anne by Gemma Lawrence

I write this review as one of the members of behalf of Rosie’s Books Review Team. I was provided with a free copy of the book as part of the team.

I have read and enjoyed La Petite Boulain, the first book in the Above all Others series and really enjoyed getting to know a bit more about Anne Boleyn’s childhood, and particularly, the way the story was told, in the first person from the point of view of young Anne, or, to be more precise, the young Anne as remembered by the older Anne at the moment of awaiting her death in the Tower.

Here we see Anne return to England after spending part of her childhood and teenage years in courts abroad. She is sad to leave France, as she feels by now more French than English, and the weather and the difficulties of her trip don’t help make her feel at home. Luckily, things take a turn for the better quickly. She meets Thomas Wyatt, a neighbour, accomplished poet, and a childhood friend, and once she joins the court, becoming one of Queen Katherine’s ladies in waiting, she soon meets interesting people, makes new friends, rekindles old friendships, and becomes a fashion icon and very admired for her style, accomplishments, and her personality.

I was curious to see how this novel would portray Anne as a young woman, in an era more familiar to most people than that of her early years. She is presented as an interesting mixture of a clever and intelligent woman, with far wider knowledge and experiences than many of the women her age she meets, but still a young girl at heart, who loves the idea of courting, handsome and romantic knights, and has to admit to being proud of the way men are attracted to her and women copy her dresses and jewels. She changes her mind often and she thinks she is in love with Tom Wyatt one day, although it’s an impossible love, but then decides it’s only friendship. She falls in love with Henry Percy (of much higher standing than her as he’s due to become the Earl of Northumberland) and with her father’s approval pursues a marriage that would have been very advantageous for her family, but when Cardinal Wolsey and Henry’s father forbid the match, her disappointment makes her hate him. And then, there’s King Henry…

I must confess that I enjoyed the discussions about Anne’s ideas and her education in religion and philosophy in the first book, and there were only passing references to it here (partly because she worried about the company she keeps and how they would react if they were aware of her opinions, and partly because there are other things that occupy more of her time), and there is much more about romance and romantic ideas. King Henry seems to notice her following an accident (although perhaps before that) and her behaviour and her refusal to become his mistress seem to spur him on rather than make him forget her and move on. If Henry Percy gave up on her without a fight, this is a man who would risk everything (even the future of his kingdom) for his own enjoyment and to prove himself, and in Anne, he meets a challenge. Not being a big reader of romance, the pull and push of the relationship and the will she/won’t she (especially knowing how things will turn up) part of it was not what interested me the most, although the scenes are well done and I found the fights and disagreements between the couple enjoyable. I became intrigued by King Henry’s portrayal, not so much by what he does and says, but by how others see him. There is a very apt warning her brother George gives her, recalling how King Henry was walking with his arm around a nobleman’s shoulders one afternoon and two days later the said nobleman’s head was topping a pole on the King’s orders.

I was more interested in matters of politics and alliances (confusing as they were), the inner workings of the court, marriages and births, and Anne’s reflections about the roles of women and men in the society of the time, that she struggles against but ultimately feels obliged to follow. I was also intrigued by the depiction of her family, her brother George, always close to her, her sister Mary, who although Anne always saw as too free and easy, she comes to understand and appreciate (and who manages to achieve a happy existence in her own terms, eventually), her mother, who suffers from a strange illness, and her father, who appears to be only interested in the family’s advancement (although claims that it is not for himself, but for those who’ll come after). He seemingly has no respect for morality if it can get in the way of achieving his goals, and at times he treats his daughters as pawns or worse. In the novel, Anne is portrayed as having much of the initiative, at least at the beginning, regarding her relationship with King Henry, but I was very intrigued by the role her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, would come to play, and how much he influenced later events and the rise of Anne to become Queen.

This volume made me wonder, more than the first one, how reliable a narrator is Anne supposed to be. She makes a very interesting comment about wearing masks and the fact that we all perform our roles in public, whatever our feelings or thoughts might really be. After all, this is Anne remembering her life and trying to distract herself from her likely dark fate. Sometimes she does protest too much, when talking about her accomplishments, intelligence and fashion sense, and insists that she does not believe in false modesty. She also talks about Tom Wyatt’s affections and how she had not encouraged him, but she evidently enjoys his attentions. At other times, she describes events and scenes as if she were at the same time protagonist and observer (from telling us what she was feeling and her concerns, she will go on to describe what she looked like or what she was wearing). She does highlight the behaviours she thinks show her in a good light and easily finds ways in which to dismiss some of her more selfish or problematic behaviours, but at a time such as the one she’s living through, after having lost everything and everybody, it’s only understandable. If anything, it shows her as a complex and contradictory individual and makes her appear more real.

The writing is once more fluid and beautifully detailed, bringing to life places, customs and times long past.

Although I know what will happen next, I’m intrigued to read Anne’s version of events and look forward to the next book. I highly recommend this series to anybody interested in Anne Boleyn who enjoys historical fiction, and to anybody who is considering reading about such a fascinating historical figure.

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com also available free from Kindle Unlimited