The Boleyn Inheritance, Philippa Gregory Tudor Series, Philippa Gregory, Book

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Product Details

Pub. Date: August 2007
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
Format: Paperback, 544pp
Sales Rank: 3,585

Series: Philippa Gregory Tudor Series, #3
ISBN-13: 9780743272513
ISBN: 074327251X
Edition Description: Reprint

Synopsis

Three Women Who Share One Fate: The Boleyn Inheritance

Anne of Cleves
She runs from her tiny country, her hateful mother, and her abusive brother to a throne whose last three occupants are dead. King Henry VIII, her new husband, instantly dislikes her. Without friends, family, or even an understanding of the language being spoken around her, she must literally save her neck in a court ruled by a deadly game of politics and the terror of an unpredictable and vengeful king. Her Boleyn Inheritance: accusations and false witnesses.

Katherine Howard
She catches the king's eye within moments of arriving at court, setting in motion the dreadful machine of politics, intrigue, and treason that she does not understand. She only knows that she is beautiful, that men desire her, that she is young and in love -- but not with the diseased old man who made her queen, beds her night after night, and killed her cousin Anne. Her Boleyn Inheritance: the threat of the axe.

Jane Rochford
She is the Boleyn girl whose testimony sent her husband and sister-in-law to their deaths. She is the trusted friend of two threatened queens, the perfectly loyal spy for her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, and a canny survivor in the murderous court of a most dangerous king. Throughout Europe, her name is a byword for malice, jealousy, and twisted lust. Her Boleyn Inheritance: a fortune and a title, in exchange for her soul.

The Boleyn Inheritance is a novel drawn tight as a lute string about a court ruled by the gallows and three women whose positions brought them wealth, admiration, and power as well as deceit, betrayal, and terror. Once again, Philippa Gregory has brought a vanished world to life -- the whisper of a silk skirt on a stone stair, the yellow glow of candlelight illuminating a hastily written note, the murmurs of the crowd gathering on Tower Green below the newly built scaffold. In The Boleyn Inheritance Gregory is at her intelligent and page-turning best.

Publishers Weekly

Returning to the scene of The Other Boleyn Girl, historical powerhouse Gregory again brings the women of Henry VIII's court vividly to life. Among the cast, who alternately narrate: Henry's fourth wife, Bavarian-born Anne of Cleves; his fifth wife, English teenager Katherine Howard; and Lady Rochford (Jane Boleyn), the jealous spouse whose testimony helped send her husband, Thomas, and sister-in-law Anne Boleyn to their execution. Attended by Lady Rochford, 24-year-old Anne of Cleves endures a disastrous first encounter with the twice-her-age king-an occasion where Henry takes notice of Katherine Howard. Gregory beautifully explains Anne of Cleves's decision to stay in England after her divorce, and offers contemporary descriptions of Lady Rochford's madness. While Gregory renders Lady Rochford with great emotion, and Anne of Cleves with sympathy, her most captivating portrayal is Katherine, the clever yet naive 16th-century adolescent counting her gowns and trinkets. Male characters are not nearly as endearing. Gregory's accounts of events are accurate enough to be persuasive, her characterizations modern enough to be convincing. Rich in intrigue and irony, this is a tale where readers will already know who was divorced, beheaded or survived, but will savor Gregory's sharp staging of how and why. (Dec. 5) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

More Reviews and Recommendations

Biography

Philippa Gregory has been penning compelling works of dramatic historical fiction since the mid-1980s, breaking out with the bestselling Wideacre trilogy and creating a buzz with The Other Boleyn Girl. As fellow author Peter Ackroyd once said of her, "She writes from instinct, not out of calculation, and it shows."

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Customer Reviews

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LOVED IT!by Anonymous

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November 17, 2009: This is one of my favorites by Gregory. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in Tudor England, and pretty much everyone else too. I liked the way the story was told in 3 parts.

Fascinating!by Anonymous

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October 10, 2009: Most interesting story of the Boleyn "survivors." Gregory's books are all real page turners. Once you've read one, and I suggest you start with The Constant Princess, you're hooked!

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Fact File

Name:
Philippa Gregory

Current Home:
Hartlepool, England

Date of Birth:
January 09, 1954

Place of Birth:
Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa

Education:
B.A. in history, Sussex University, 1982; Ph.D., 18th-century popular fiction, Edinburgh, 1984

Awards:
BAFTA nomination for screenplay of A Respectable Trade, 1998; Feminist Book Fortnight Award, 1990; Romantic Novelist of the Year Award, 2002

Biography

Philippa Gregory, author of the bestselling Wideacre trilogy and other celebrated historical novels, holds a B.A. in history and a Ph.D. in 18th-century literature. In her youth, however, the meticulous writer-researcher almost skipped going to university (she was, as she put it, "a bit of a rebel at school"). When she finally did enroll at Sussex University, she took a course taught by the historian Maurice Hutt, and the rest is -- what else? -- history.

"It was such a powerful experience that, really, it transformed my life," she explained in an interview with The Guardian. "I was looking for something that would explain everything -- I was that kind of earnest young woman! -- and history seemed to be able to do that."

Gregory earned her degree from Sussex, then traveled to Edinburgh to research 18th-century popular novels. The research spawned both a Ph.D. thesis and Gregory's first novel, Wideacre, which was a New York Times bestseller. It came, Gregory pointed out in a Barnes and Noble interview, "at a time when people wanted a new sort of historical fiction: more realistic, more radical, more sexy, and harder edged. That's how I see the world, so I never wrote for a market, I always wrote to reflect my own view of the period, and it has been phenomenally successful."

After extending Wideacre into a trilogy, Gregory continued to write fiction, delving into 16th-century witchcraft , 17th-century political turmoil, and 18th-century slave trading, as well as exploring contemporary life.

But while Gregory -- in her own view and in the views of many critics -- continued to improve as a writer, none of her books matched the popular success of Wideacre until she wrote The Other Boleyn Girl, a provocative tale of sexual politics in the court of Henry VIII, and The Queen's Fool, the story of a 14-year-old Jewish girl brought to the court of Queen Mary. Both novels became bestsellers and widely acclaimed storytelling tour de forces.

Gregory continues to mine the territory of Tudor England for stories -- and she continues with her historical research, building up an ever more dazzling, daring and complete picture of the period. "Accuracy is very important to me because I have a total commitment to history," Gregory told The Guardian. "It answered my deepest questions, of which, I suppose, the most profound is: �Why am I here?' Understanding your history can tell you that. It's how I understand who I am and where I came from. I would never lie to anyone about history."

Good to Know

In our interview, Gregory shared some fascinating and fun facts about herself:

"I have an enormous horse whom I absolutely adore, and I keep playing hooky from writing to ride him."

"I went to The Gambia on holiday and gave a rural schoolmaster money for a well in the school garden to teach the children how to farm with irrigation, and to grow crops for them to eat at dinnertime. The project took off, and he and I have built more than 50 wells in The Gambia together, and we are still digging! Each well costs only �250, so I ask friends for money and I give my lecture fees towards it. It is one of the greatest achievements of my life and makes a real difference to the poorest people in Africa."

"Although some people think I am a romantic novelist I have always thought of myself as a rather gritty radical historian. For instance, I have never believed that there is only one person for each person in the world. It doesn't make the least sense to me. However, in reality, I fell in love at 45 and I am absolutely certain that my now husband is the only man in the world for me, a truth I find both ridiculous and uplifting."

"I love reading and I love thinking -- the reason that I love my books so much is that in order to write them I have to read and to think for years at a time about the same period of time. By the time I settle down to write I have to know fairly intensely about the characters, the period, and the issues. I always get interested in some of the side issues -- like the currency or the change of agriculture."

"I have a great passion for the countryside and I can't be happy unless I am walking in the country or riding once or twice a week. When we go on author tour my husband always makes sure that we have walking breaks to keep me sane!"

Feature Interview

In the winter of 2004, Philippa Gregory took some time to talk with us about some of her favorite books, authors, and interests.

What was the book that most influenced your life or your career as a writer -- and why?
I couldn't name any single book as a unique influence. As a child I read Alison Goudge's The Little White Horse, and the combination of historical fiction and gothic was very powerful for me.

I read all of Jane Austen's novels very early on and learned to love her economy of style and precision. She still seems to me the finest writer in the English language. But I am a very big enthusiast for the works of E. M. Forster, who seems to me to be able to take ideas of the greatest seriousness and incorporate them into a novel that's fluent and realistic -- and even funny.

What are your favorite books, and what makes them special to you?
As well as the above, Nigel Balchin's Mine Own Executioner -- a powerful description of the time, and of a man in complete contradiction with himself.

Another novel about struggling to understand oneself is William Golding's Pincher Martin, which is a work of genius, and one that no one ever agrees about!

I love the novels of Iris Murdoch -- though sometimes they feel a bit same-y. My favorite is The Sandcastle, which is Murdoch at her finest, a mix of magic and the absolutely prosaic.

I don't read historical novels, which often surprises people, but I find the genre very patchy. The greatest historical novelist in my opinion was Georgette Heyer -- her book on the Peninsular War, The Spanish Bride, is brilliant.

What are some of your favorite films, and what makes them unforgettable to you?
I adored Shakespeare in Love because of the wit of the script and the richness of the panoramic filming. The story is the most delicious tosh, but it makes me laugh and cry. I love Gone with the Wind, probably for many of the same reasons.

What types of music do you like? Is there any particular kind you like to listen to when you're writing?
I don't listen to music while I am writing because I find it too overpowering. It would make me write in the emotion of the music, rather than in the emotion of the story. I like soul to dance to, and blues and jazz to get mournfully drunk to, old songs like Cole Porter to sing along to, and classical music to read to and drive to.

If you had a book club, what would it be reading -- and why?
If I had a book club it would read the books that I lack the energy and discipline to read alone. We would start with Plato and work through the philosophy of the Western world. I feel terribly guilty that I know nothing about Wittgenstein.

What are your favorite kinds of books to give -- and get -- as gifts?
I'm ashamed to say I like silly books for gifts because I would never buy them for myself. I like the cartoonist Gary Larson, and I adore James Thurber. I like books that aren't even for reading, like books on gardens.

Do you have any special writing rituals? For example, what do you have on your desk when you're writing?
I have a mess on my desk, but the main thing is that all the things I need are near to hand, so I have a big ring-bound file of my notes, and my walls are covered with pictures of my characters and maps of the towns they live in and sometimes plans of their houses.

Many writers are hardly "overnight success" stories. How long did it take for you to get where you are today? Any rejection-slip horror stories or inspirational anecdotes?
The extraordinary part of my story is that I was an overnight success with my very first novel. Wideacre. I think the reason that the book was so successful was that I wrote it during my work on my Ph.D., so I was absolutely absorbed and even overwhelmed with information about the 18th century, and I had been studying 18th-century novels solidly for four years. It meant the book was powerfully researched with the information in my head rather than in my notes, and the structure of the novel was part of the way I thought. Having said that, it was at a time when people wanted a new sort of historical fiction: more realistic, more radical, more sexy, and harder edged. That's how I see the world, so I never wrote for a market, I always wrote to reflect my own view of the period, and it has been phenomenally successful.

What one has to admit is that I have carried on writing in this way through the years of the historical novel's decline that happened in the �90s. It was very disconcerting and very disheartening to be certain that I was writing better than I had written before and yet experiencing stable if not falling sales. I knew I could do nothing except continue to write as well as I could and hope for a change in the marketplace. That has now come, with readers discovering an enthusiasm for the new historical fiction which I and a very few other modern writers do.

What tips or advice do you have for writers still looking to be discovered?
Never write for the marketplace; you can't judge it, and you certainly can't catch up with it. Always write the very best you can about the things that you feel passionate about. You are your first reader -- never write down to yourself.

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In the summer of 2004, we asked authors featured in Meet the Writers to give us a list of their all-time favorite summer reads, and tell us what makes them just right for the season. Here's what Philippa Gregory had to say:

Iris Murdoch, The Sandcastle -- This is a lovely moody book with lots of English weather and it starts in a heatwave, perfect for summer reading. It is a story of desire and English snobbery and the control of a wife over her husband, it is a fascinating study of a marriage.

Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger -- A powerful nostalgic look at a haunting love over a lifetime by one of the most thoughtful of English writers.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own -- This gives you such prestige on the beach! And it is such a powerful examination of the obstacles that face women in achieving success -- I always think of it as a summer read because I took it with me on holiday to Scotland one summer and my copy is battered by me hitting midges and re-reading.

Charles Dickens, Hard Times -- This is a great novel for taking the romance out of the past. Dickens writes of an England which is realistic and bitterly hard for the striking workers and he writes without sentimentality. It is also a great picture of England in the middle of change.

Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd -- The film of this novel was so good that it is great to re-read the novel again and see how much depth and wisdom there is in the original.

D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love -- Again, wonderful English weather, in this book. There is an English house party in midsummer which has to be read in full sunshine to be fully enjoyed. It is a wonderful novel by a writer who created his own narrative voice.

Mary Renault, The Bull from the Sea -- I just recommended this to a friend of mine who is going to Crete for her summer holiday. It is a most powerful and evocative conjurorings of the ancient greek world. Myth rewritten as a novel -- wonderful!

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice -- It always bears another reading, and I think in many ways it is a perfect rendition of the novel form.

Nigel Balchin, Mine Own Executioner -- This was a hugely popular novel at the time but is sadly out of print now. If you can find a second hand edition I think it is a haunting story of love and the price that good men pay in wartime.

William Golding, Pincher Martin -- When I first read this novel I thought that Golding was the finest writer in the English language. The years have barely reduced my admiration for what he does here. It is not so much a novel as an extended short story, it has only one character and he is quite alone. You would not think it would be riveting, but it is!

From the Publisher

Three Women Who Share One Fate: The Boleyn Inheritance

Anne of Cleves
She runs from her tiny country, her hateful mother, and her abusive brother to a throne whose last three occupants are dead. King Henry VIII, her new husband, instantly dislikes her. Without friends, family, or even an understanding of the language being spoken around her, she must literally save her neck in a court ruled by a deadly game of politics and the terror of an unpredictable and vengeful king. Her Boleyn Inheritance: accusations and false witnesses.

Katherine Howard
She catches the king's eye within moments of arriving at court, setting in motion the dreadful machine of politics, intrigue, and treason that she does not understand. She only knows that she is beautiful, that men desire her, that she is young and in love -- but not with the diseased old man who made her queen, beds her night after night, and killed her cousin Anne. Her Boleyn Inheritance: the threat of the axe.

Jane Rochford
She is the Boleyn girl whose testimony sent her husband and sister-in-law to their deaths. She is the trusted friend of two threatened queens, the perfectly loyal spy for her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, and a canny survivor in the murderous court of a most dangerous king. Throughout Europe, her name is a byword for malice, jealousy, and twisted lust. Her Boleyn Inheritance: a fortune and a title, in exchange for her soul.

The Boleyn Inheritance is a novel drawn tight as a lute string about a court ruled by the gallows and three women whose positions brought them wealth, admiration, and power as well as deceit, betrayal, and terror. Once again, Philippa Gregory has brought a vanished world to life -- the whisper of a silk skirt on a stone stair, the yellow glow of candlelight illuminating a hastily written note, the murmurs of the crowd gathering on Tower Green below the newly built scaffold. In The Boleyn Inheritance Gregory is at her intelligent and page-turning best.

Publishers Weekly

Returning to the scene of The Other Boleyn Girl, historical powerhouse Gregory again brings the women of Henry VIII's court vividly to life. Among the cast, who alternately narrate: Henry's fourth wife, Bavarian-born Anne of Cleves; his fifth wife, English teenager Katherine Howard; and Lady Rochford (Jane Boleyn), the jealous spouse whose testimony helped send her husband, Thomas, and sister-in-law Anne Boleyn to their execution. Attended by Lady Rochford, 24-year-old Anne of Cleves endures a disastrous first encounter with the twice-her-age king-an occasion where Henry takes notice of Katherine Howard. Gregory beautifully explains Anne of Cleves's decision to stay in England after her divorce, and offers contemporary descriptions of Lady Rochford's madness. While Gregory renders Lady Rochford with great emotion, and Anne of Cleves with sympathy, her most captivating portrayal is Katherine, the clever yet naive 16th-century adolescent counting her gowns and trinkets. Male characters are not nearly as endearing. Gregory's accounts of events are accurate enough to be persuasive, her characterizations modern enough to be convincing. Rich in intrigue and irony, this is a tale where readers will already know who was divorced, beheaded or survived, but will savor Gregory's sharp staging of how and why. (Dec. 5) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

The author of The Other Boleyn Girl (2002) returns to the executed queen's doomed family in a historical novel that maps the sad demise of Henry VIII in a series of intimate personal testimonies. Gregory's tale of greed and revenge takes place against the short, unhappy tenures of Henry's fourth and fifth wives. Jockeying for position close to the throne, three powerful, ambitious women collide. The author skillfully allows each character to tell her side of the story in her own words. The first voice we hear belongs to 30-year-old Jane Boleyn, widowed sister-in-law to Anne. Jane's husband George was implicated in his sister's alleged infidelities and went with her to the scaffold in 1533; his calculating wife moved to save her inheritance rather than her husband and six years later is still scheming. Next up is Anne of Cleves, soon to be Queen Number Four, a provincial, German-speaking Protestant princess chosen by Henry's advisor, Thomas Cromwell, as a politically suitable alliance to keep Spain and France at bay. Badgered and bullied all her life by her brother and mother, 24-year-old Anne wants nothing more than to escape Cleves and have a meaningful life. The third voice belongs to Katherine Howard, a pretty, 15-year-old cousin of the dead Anne Boleyn and an incorrigible flirt who is brought to court as a lady-in-waiting by her conniving, powerful uncle, the Duke of Norfolk. Also summoned to court to attend the new queen, Jane begins plotting behind the scenes with Norfolk to assure Anne of Cleve's hasty fall and Katherine's quick ascent in Henry's favor. Gregory's knowledge of the period, combined with her novelistic skill, allows her to view this grim tale through the eyes of thethree women: wily, experienced Jane; na�ve, sensible Anne; and vain, greedy young Kitty. Their first-person accounts are convincing and shockingly self-serving. Royal history spoon-fed in a highly digestible form.

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Product Details

Pub. Date: August 2007
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
Format: Paperback, 544pp
Sales Rank: 3,585

Series: Philippa Gregory Tudor Series, #3
ISBN-13: 9780743272513
ISBN: 074327251X
Edition Description: Reprint

Reading Group Guide
Forewords & Introductions
Read an Excerpt
Read a Sample Chapter

Reading Group Guide

Reading Group Guide

The Boleyn Inheritance

Philippa Gregory

Introduction

We are players in this game, but we do not choose our own moves. The men will play us for their own desires. All we can do is try to survive whatever happens next...

In Tudor England, three women are determined to escape their circumstances and start anew in the court of King Henry VIII.

There is Jane Boleyn, who longs once again for the world of courtiers and royal intrigue even though the last scandal in which she became entangled resulted in the deaths of her husband and her sister-in-law, Queen Anne. There is fourteen-year-old Katherine Howard, who has her cousin Anne Boleyn's beauty and precociousness. When she catches the king's eye she sets in motion a dreadful political plot she is too young to understand. And there is Anne of Cleves, a duchess from a far-away country who cannot even speak the language in her new homeland. Desperate to flee her abusive mother and brother, she is willing to marry Henry and sit on England's throne under the shadow of its last three queens.

A vengeful and unpredictable king, Henry descends deeper and deeper into madness. The peril runs deep, especially for these three women, recalling the terrified days leading up to the death of Anne Boleyn five years earlier. To be a favorite of the king comes at a risk. Will one of these three women inherit the fate of the former queen and pay with her life?

Questions for Discussion

1. What reasons do Jane Boleyn, Katherine Howard, and Anne of Cleves each have for seeking a place in Henry VIII's court? Do any of them believe it might be dangerous to be a part ofthe royal circle, or is it a risk they're willing to take? Does your opinion of each woman change over the course of the novel?

2. Why does Anne of Cleves believe it is a matter of need for her to escape the house of her brother and mother? How does the advice Anne's mother gives her-to be demure, to wear chaste clothing-actually work against Anne in her relationship with Henry?

3. When Anne arrives in England, the courtiers "judge her harshly for her shyness and her lack of speech. They blame her for her clothes and they laugh at her for not being able to dance or sing" (75). Why do the members of the court refuse to give Anne a chance? How significant are the language and cultural barriers that hinder Anne when she first comes to England?

4. Compare the way the court initially treats Anne to how they treat her during the Christmas festivities at Hampton Court after the dissolution of her marriage to Henry. In what ways has she re-made herself? What is the single greatest factor in Anne's transformation?

5. Discuss the encounter in which the king comes to Anne of Cleves in disguise, and she rejects his advances. Why does this incident have such an impact on Henry's mental state? How is this incident a turning point for both Anne and for Katherine?

6. Does Jane realize the implications of having given evidence against her husband, George, and sister-in-law, Anne Boleyn? Did she do it to save George and Anne, or did she do it out of spite and jealousy? Why is Jane so eager to return to Henry's court given what happened the last time she was there?

7. Jane is reluctant to give false evidence against Anne of Cleves, as she's ordered to do by the Duke of Norfolk. Why then does she go ahead with it? Does Katherine Howard, who has a friendly relationship with Anne, feel any remorse about usurping Anne's place as queen? Why or why not?

8. What are Henry's motivations for setting Anne of Cleves aside? Is his decision not to have her executed a political one or a personal one?

9. Why does Anne prefer to remain in England rather than return to Cleves? Ultimately, is she satisfied with her life as a single woman?

10. How does the Duke of Norfolk use Jane and Katherine to further his own political advancement? Is Jane a willing participant or more of a pawn in the duke's schemes? How much responsibility does Katherine, who is fourteen years old when she first goes to Henry's court, bear for her actions?

11. When Jane is locked in the Tower awaiting sentencing, she decides to act crazy in order to avoid the executioner's block. Is Jane truly mad or merely a good actress?

12. The Duke of Norfolk tells Jane that she is "a byword for malice, jealousy and twisted love" and that she is "an evil woman" (457). What empathy, if any, do you feel for Jane? Does Jane possess any positive traits? If so, what are they?

13. In what ways does the memory of Anne Boleyn haunt Jane, Anne, and Katherine? What is each woman's "Boleyn inheritance"?

14. Did reading The Boleyn Inheritance give you an understanding of the inner workings of a 16th-century royal court? How so? Discuss the social and political realities of the time-particularly the roles of women-as they apply to the circumstances of Jane, Anne, and Katherine.

15. Have you read Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl, The Queen's Fool, The Virgin's Lover, and The Constant Princess, all of which deal with Tudor-era figures? If so, how did The Boleyn Inheritance compare to these novels?

Book Club Tips

Along with The Boleyn Inheritance, read and discuss The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory's novel about the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn as seen through the eyes of her sister, Mary.

Learn more about the Tudor monarchs (and see portraits of Henry VIII's six wives) at www.tudorhistory.org.

Set the scene by serving traditional English tea and pastries. A variety of teas is available at www.englishteastore.com, along with Norfolk Manor biscuits, Currant Scone Mix, English Clotted Cream, and other delicacies. You'll also find a selection of English Tea Party Recipes at www.joyofbaking.com/EnglishTeaParty.html.

Visit Philippa Gregory's website, www.philippagregory.com, to learn more about the author, view a Tudor family tree, and read background information on The Boleyn Inheritance.

Forewords & Introductions

Reading Group Guide

The Boleyn Inheritance

Philippa Gregory

Introduction

We are players in this game, but we do not choose our own moves. The men will play us for their own desires. All we can do is try to survive whatever happens next...

In Tudor England, three women are determined to escape their circumstances and start anew in the court of King Henry VIII.

There is Jane Boleyn, who longs once again for the world of courtiers and royal intrigue even though the last scandal in which she became entangled resulted in the deaths of her husband and her sister-in-law, Queen Anne. There is fourteen-year-old Katherine Howard, who has her cousin Anne Boleyn's beauty and precociousness. When she catches the king's eye she sets in motion a dreadful political plot she is too young to understand. And there is Anne of Cleves, a duchess from a far-away country who cannot even speak the language in her new homeland. Desperate to flee her abusive mother and brother, she is willing to marry Henry and sit on England's throne under the shadow of its last three queens.

A vengeful and unpredictable king, Henry descends deeper and deeper into madness. The peril runs deep, especially for these three women, recalling the terrified days leading up to the death of Anne Boleyn five years earlier. To be a favorite of the king comes at a risk. Will one of these three women inherit the fate of the former queen and pay with her life?

Questions for Discussion

1. What reasons do Jane Boleyn, Katherine Howard, and Anne of Cleves each have for seeking a place in Henry VIII's court? Do any of them believe it might be dangerous to bea part of the royal circle, or is it a risk they're willing to take? Does your opinion of each woman change over the course of the novel?