The Boleyn Inheritance: Boleyn, Book 2

I wasn't sure I was going to like this book at first. I'm not always a great fan of the letter-like use of the first tense and it took me a while to get used to the three voices and the style. I very glad I did though. The book starts when Anne of Cleaves is sitting for her portrait and hoping to be chosen to be the fourth wife of Henry VIII. She is, of course, successful, and falls in love with England as she travels to meet her husband to be. Unfortunately, her first meeting with the King goes disasterously wrong and the marriage is doomed from this point onwards. When she is divorced, part of the settlement is Boleyn land and property - one of the two forms of Boleyn Inheritance. Anne's story is interspersed with two others: that of Jane Boleyn, and Katherine Howard, Anne Boleyn's cousin. Jane's husband George was beheaded with Anne Boleyn after the two were accused by Jane herself as being lovers. Katherine, young, vain, and naive takes the eye of Henry when Anne of Cleaves and Henry first meet and later becomes his 'rose without a thorn' and the wife he hopes is his true companion. If you know your history, you know how Katherine's story ends. Philipa Gregory takes well known historical fact and creates three fascinating and interrelated stories full of hope, longing, the machiavelian and controlling Duke of Norfolk, and intense fear of Henry and the scaffold.

Read 'The Other Boleyn Girl' first (but don't bother with the recent film version!)
It took me days to get through 'The Boleyn Inheritance'(and many piles of ironing!) but it was worth it. I became immersed in the characters and it made history 'come alive'. Definately my favourite of the series!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I liked the format with the three readers, and I know that this is historical fiction not historical fact, but I found it hard to believe that Catherine Howard can have been quite so brainless!

This is by definately my favourite audiobook so far. The story is very cleverly written and I could not get enough of it.

This wonderful author was perfectly complimented by the narrator

I have admired this authors work for a long time, but listening to this book with the 3 narators was the best experience I have had of her writing. The portrayal of the 3 characters with 3 separate voices was enspired and made the book all the more interesting. I particularly liked the narator of Katherine howard and the voice of the narator personified the very young feather-brained girl to a T. My only wish is that I knew who read each character and not that there were 3 readers with no idea who read which part. The whole picture of the Kings court and everyone in it were made vivid by these 3 readers and the authors stunning writing speaks for itself.