The Book: Lady Jane Grey was born into times of extreme danger. Child of a scheming father and a ruthless mother, for whom she was merely a pawn in a dynastic power game with the highest stakes, she lived a life in thrall to political machinations and lethal religious fervour.
Jane's astonishing and essentially tragic story was played out during one of the most momentous periods of English history. As a great-niece of Henry VIII, and the cousin of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I, she grew up to realise that she could never throw off the chains of her destiny. Her honesty, intelligence and strength of character carry the reader through all the vicious twists of Tudor power politics, to her nine-day reaign and its unbearably poignant conclusion.
My review: I love the different P.O.Vs shown by Weir in this book. This increases the sense of Lady Jane being so helpless. This makes her execution all the more tragic as there was nothing Lady Jane could have done to save herself. Her short life was blighted by the tyranny of her parents and even by her royal blood. It is due to her royal blood that she is unable to retire from court life and read her books and study and it is due to her royal blood that she must die. I especially enjoy the change of heart Lady Frances has at the end. Although there is no historical evidence to it, I like to imagine that at least one of her parents felt remorse in the end. I cannot wait to read more books by Alison Weir.
Other reviews: 'Alison Weir is one of our greatest popular historians. In her first work of fiction, she sets out to trace the brief life of one of hitory's most tragic heroines...Weir manages her heroine's voice brilliantly, respecting the past's distance while conjuring a dignified and fiercely modern spirit' DAILY MAIL
'[Weir] gives us a meaty flavour of the times, one of the bloodiest and most dangerous periods in history, full of betrayals and beheadings...An impressive debut.' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
'This is a novel that will grips readers and give great pleasure.' ALLAN MASSIE - SCOTSMAN
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