How She Came to Be Queen
I reverted to last year’s reading schedule — a book a day — when I read Karen Harper’s latest novel, The Queen’s Governess. I sat down and did not get up again until I had finished it. Needless to say, it is a page-turner, a fascinating summation of the intriguing life and times of Elizabeth I, from Henry VIII’s pursuit of Anne Boleyn and his divorce of Catherine of Aragon, through the death of Edward VI and Elizabeth’s coronation.
The novel is told from the point of view of Katherine Champernowne Ashley, who as a young girl catches the attention of Cromwell, and is brought to court by him to serve in his army of information-gatherers. She eventually becomes the devoted and brave governess, protector, and champion of Elizabeth, tangling with Cromwell and Thomas Seymour (among others) and dodging the worst tortures of The Tower in keeping the promise that she made to Anne Boleyn that Elizabeth would be kept safe. The character of Kat Ashley is historically accurate and Harper conducted ample research (as usual) to support her vivid and engaging novel. This is her second novel set in Elizabeth’s times, her ninth book with Kat (the others are all mysteries) and I’ve liked what I’ve read so much that I intend on reading them all.
The Queen’s Governess is a must-read for any Tudor aficionado (and judging by the popularity of anything tudor, there are millions of us out there) and will increase enjoyment of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (which won The Booker Prize last year) and Alison Weir’s The Lady in the Tower (from the excerpts I’ve read, the writing in this book is quite dull but the content is thoroughly researched and Weir presents new details about Anne Boleyn’s life and death). I also recommend the Shardlake mysteries of C.J. Sansom, set during the reign of Henry VIII. Sansom’s mysteries are my favorite in the Tudor fiction category for their great emotional as well as intellectual depth, but I grant Harper high marks for how thoroughly engaging and wholly informative her novels are to read.
The Tudors provide endless characters, plots, subterfuges, machinations, double-crosses, sex, as well as legitimate and illegitimate progeny, more than enough to provide fodder for many more books by Sansom and Harper. I look forward to reading them all.
