Can't Wait Wednesday: The King's Pleasure by Alison Weir

 

For this week's Can't Wait Wednesday, hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings, I am looking forward to The King's Pleasure by Alison Weir. She is one of my favorite non-fiction authors and this is sure to be a solid fictional account of the life of Henry the Eighth. It's only natural that she'd write this one after her bestselling novels about his six wives. Hoping this one will be entertaining. 

May 30, 2023

Historical Fiction

Book description courtesy of NetGalley

The New York Times bestselling author of the Six Tudor Queens series explores the private side of the legendary king Henry VIII and his dramatic and brutal reign in this extraordinary historical novel.

Having completed her Six Tudor Queens series of novels on the wives of Henry VIII, extensively researched and written from each queen's point of view, Alison Weir now gives Henry himself a voice, telling the story of his remarkable thirty-six-year reign and his six marriages. 

Young Henry began his rule as a magnificent and chivalrous Renaissance prince who embodied every virtue. He had all the qualities to make a triumph of his kingship, yet we remember only the violence. Henry famously broke with the Pope, founding the Church of England and launching a religious revolution that divided his kingdom. He beheaded two of his wives and cast aside two others. He died a suspicious, obese, disease-riddled tyrant, old before his time. His reign is remembered as one of dangerous intrigue and bloodshed—and yet the truth is far more complex.

The King's Pleasure brings to life the idealistic monarch who expanded Parliament, founded the Royal Navy, modernized medical training, composed music and poetry, and patronized the arts. A passionate man in search of true love, he was stymied by the imperative to produce a male heir, as much a victim of circumstance as his unhappy wives. Had fate been kinder to him, the history of England would have been very different.

Here is the story of the private man. To his contemporaries, he was a great king, a legend in his own lifetime. And he left an extraordinary legacy—a modern Britain.

Classics Club Spin #33

 

Classics Club Spin #33

I am joining the Classics Club challenge this month to read a book from my list according to the number given to me on Sunday, March 19th. It is titled "33" because it is the 33rd time the club has had this challenge. This will be my very first spin. I am a little nervous about this as I like to have total control over what I feel like reading each day. But I made a goal to read these classics and this will help get me moving. I am already feeling waayyy behind! So wish me luck and I'll post on Sunday which book number I am tasked with reading. Here is my list of twenty random books from my Classics Club page:

1. Anna Karenina

2. Northanger Abbey

3. Jamaica Inn

4. North and South (Gaskell, not Jakes!)

5. The Man in the Brown Suit

6. Strangers On a Train

7. Emma

8. The Age of Innocence

9. 1984

10. Breakfast At Tiffany's

11. The Circular Staircase

12. Devil Water

13. This Side of Glory

14. Waverly

15. The Woman in White

16. Vanity Fair

17. The Talented Mr. Ripley

18. Now, Voyager

19. The Innocence of Father Brown

20. Whose Body?

Wondering what number the spin will land on? Check back on Sunday for my post! I have to read and review that book by Sunday, April 30th. 

And Only To Deceive by Tasha Alexander (Lady Emily Mysteries Book One)

Publication Date: October 11, 2005

Length: 320 pages

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

This is a long running series with seventeen books. Her new one is set to be published this fall and has yet to even have a description summary yet. I wanted to start with this book because it is the first in the series. Each book features Lady Emily as the main character as she solves a mystery, often in different locations around the world. 

Lady Emily has been recently widowed and hardly knew her husband, the Viscount Phillip of Ashton. She only accepted his proposal in the first place to escape her life with her overbearing mother and had no real connection to Phillip. They weren't together long as he went to Africa on safari and died there. Emily at first revels in her widowhood and new found freedom that was given to her upon his death and inheritance of plenty of wealth to keep her comfortable but soon she begins to read his journals and finds herself falling in love with him. He clearly was in love with her as evidenced in his writings and Emily starts to regret she hadn't known him better or for longer. 

She finds he was also an articulate, well educated, interesting man who through his affiliation with the museum and artifacts fascinate her and she begins to be interested in learning more about Greek history, poetry, and Phillip's association with it all. 

She is faced in her real, everyday life with her dead husband's friend, Colin Hargreaves and is not so smitten at first. She finds herself running into him with great annoyance and their personalities clashing. But this flesh and blood man turns out to be an exciting prospect himself and along with other suitors, she finds her world getting complicated.

The mystery part of the story involves theft and intrigue and throughout Emily is subjected to some harrowing situations. She has to find out who is behind stolen artifacts that connect to Phillip and the British Museum. The answer is both frightening and close to home. She begins to wonder if her adoration of Phillip was misplaced and if she can trust anyone close to her.

This story started out strong. I enjoyed Alexander's writing and it felt like she was giving me a lesson in art, history, and Victorian manners, along with a mystery to solve. It is clear she is knowledgeable in Greek art history and she did a solid job of dialogue and character interaction for the time. Unfortunately, I can only give it three stars because halfway through I really started to lose interest in the mystery part. It felt more like a romance novel with a background puzzle thrown in. I began to feel there wasn't enough mystery there to keep things suspenseful and the villain was just not well hidden to the end. A solid effort to be sure, especially for a first novel, but not a five star book for me.

I am interested in her upcoming book and will probably try it. The plot intrigues me because it is a Lady Emily mystery set in the Scottish Highlands. Hopefully it will be exciting!