Suzannah Dunn Archive

The Sixth Wife by Suzannah Dunn

Posted October 7, 2011 By dorolerium

Title: The Sixth Wife
Author: Suzannah Dunn
Publisher: Harper Collins
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 288
How I Read It: Paperback purchased by me

Synopsis: Clever, level-headed Katherine Parr has suffered through four years of marriage to the aging and irascible King Henry VIII – and she has survived, unlike the five wives who came before her.  But less than a year after the old king’s death, her heart is won by the dashing Thomas Seymour, and their hasty union undoes a lifetime of prudent caution.

An unwilling witness to the queen’s late-blossoming love, Catherine, Duchess of Suffolk, harbors nagging suspicions of Kate’s handsome and ambitious new husband.  But as Catherine is drawn deeper into the web of politics ensnaring her oldest friend, it gradually becomes clear that she has her own dark tale to tell.  For though Thomas might betray his wife for power, Catherine might betray her for passion, risking everything she has in a world where love is a luxury not even royalty can easily afford.

My Review: I was really looking forward to this book, I had read another by this author earlier in the year and liked it quite a bit.  And I liked this too, but it took me a bit of time to adjust to the viewpoint and way of speaking in this one.

The book is told from the viewpoint of Catherine of Suffolk, the last wife of Charles Brandon, who was a great friend to Henry VIII.  Cathy, completely by coincidence, is a great friend of Katherine Parr, Henry’s sixth and final wife, and we pick up the story right after Kate marries Thomas Seymour, going through the last year or so of her life.

I think that’s the part I had a hard time with – I’d like to read a bit of a story about Kate’s time married to Henry in addition to the time afterwards.  We see so much fiction about several of his earlier wives, and if I’m being honest, that’s the interesting part about Katherine Parr – that she was married to Henry.

Anyone who reads into the latter wives of Henry probably knows how Kate’s life goes…she’s married to Henry in his twilight, is nearly arrested, outlives him, marries Thomas Seymour, and dies shortly after giving birth to their child.  This book kept me guessing as to how the author would factor Elizabeth I into this story, as she was allegedly involved in a somewhat scandal with Thomas, and it kept me on edge with wondering when that would come into play.  Although I didn’t love the way it all came about, I have to admit that it was an interesting portrayal into the lives of this family for the short time they were together.

While I didn’t learn anything new from this book, I did enjoy the tale.  After my initial adjustment to how it was written, I felt it was an entertaining telling of this story, and I really enjoyed having Cathy as our main character and reading from her point of view.  I’m looking forward to reading more by this author!

Read this book if: You enjoy historical fiction about Katherine Parr.  If you haven’t read anything about her before, you might want to pick something else up first, such as The Sixth Wife by Jean Plaidy.

My Rating: 3/5 – Two thumbs up, fine holiday fun!

 

Filed in 2011, Royal Reviews, Suzannah Dunn | Tagged:

The Confession of Katherine Howard by Suzannah Dunn

Posted May 4, 2011 By dorolerium

Synopsis: When twelve-year-old Katherine Howard comes to live in the Duchess of Norfolk’s household, poor relation Cat Tilney is deeply suspicious of her.  The two girls couldn’t be more different: Cat, watchful and ambitious: Katherine, interested only in clothes and boys.  Their companions are in thrall to Katherine, but it’s Cat in whom Katherine confides.  Summoned to court at seventeen, Katherine leaves Cat in the company of her ex-lover, Francis, with whom Cat begins a serious love affair.

Within months, the king has set aside his latest wife for Katherine.  The future seems assured for the new queen and her maid-in-waiting, although Cat would feel more confident if Katherine hadn’t embarked on an affair with one of the king’s favoured attendants, Thomas Culpeper.

For a blissful year and a half, it seems that Katherine can have everything she wants.  But then allegations are made about her girlhood love affairs.  Desperately frightened, Katherine recounts a version of events which implicates Francis but which Cat knows to be a lie.  With Francis imprisoned in the Tower, Cat alone knows the whole truth of Katherine Howard’s past.

My Review: This book presented a somewhat new view of Katherine Howard’s tale, or at least a view new to me.  The entire story is told from the viewpoint of the best friend of Katherine, Cat Tilney, and it’s a somewhat sympathetic, but maybe more plausible, description of the entire debacle.  Granted, the friendship between Katherine and Cat is likely very fabricated, and perhaps I liked it so much because the view presented is more in line with how I’ve always looked at Kitty myself.

The typical tale of Katherine is that she was a relatively simple minded girl who let her heart get the better of her in multiple situations.  She’s always portrayed as very flighty, never putting much thought into anything, and only concerned with her looks and what that’ll get her.  And there’s definitely some of that in this book, but Cat also represents Kitty as very calculating with her liaisons, and as knowing exactly what she’s doing the entire time.

Katherine goes through much of her girlhood picking out some new boy to receive affection from, those relationships getting more involved as she gets older, but she’s certainly never the innocent.  Cat watches in wonder and horror much of the time, not really understanding what Katherine is thinking.  Especially after Kitty becomes queen and embarks on an affair with Thomas Culpeper.

Cat really echoes a lot of what I’ve always thought – when you know what happened to Anne Boleyn, why on earth would you even take the risk?  Katherine Howard had a great position for herself: in all likelihood she was going to outlive Henry VIII.  She could have been remembered as the adored little queen who entertained the king in his twilight years.

Granted, the Howard family had accumulated even more enemies in this time as they had during Anne’s reign, but isn’t that all the more reason for caution?  While I’ve always felt that Anne was truly taken down by her enemies rather than her own indiscretions, I’ve likewise believed that Kitty simply made a bunch of thoughtless mistakes with no mind for the history of her husband.  She really should have been doing everything to keep herself above suspicion, and the ladies around her who were older should have done more to watch out for her youthful, naive mind.

I quite enjoyed this book, so much that I ordered a couple of other books by this author and hope to read them soon.  I loved this alternative look at Katherine’s life, and I can’t wait to see if Suzannah Dunn takes the same sort of look at other Queens of England.

Read this book if: I think fans of the Tudor era will enjoy this one.  It presents Henry in a different light as well, less of a monster and gives Katherine more responsibility for her actions.

My Rating: 3.5/5 – Two thumbs up, fine holiday fun!

Full Disclosure: I received this book for free from the LibraryThing early reviewers program, supplied by the publisher, HarperPress.  This has not affected my review in any way.  I was likewise not compensated for this review.

Filed in 2011, ARC, Suzannah Dunn | Tagged: