The Boleyn Inheritance

You might remember that I wrote a couple of months ago about how I'd been reading Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl for our Writers' Novel Reading Group and how I'd really enjoyed it, even though I didn't expect to.

I took advantage of some down time on holiday to read the sequel to it, The Boleyn Inheritance, which continues the story of Henry VIII and his wives after the death of wife number three, Jane Seymour. It's told from the point of view of three characters. One of them, Jane Boleyn, appears in The Other Boleyn Girl, as she is the unappealing wife of George Boleyn and the sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn. The other two are new to us - Anne of Cleves and Katharine Howard.

It's very interesting to see how the author switches viewpoint between the three and how our views of them and our sympathies change as the story progresses. Our attitude to Henry VIII also alters throughout the book - although for anyone who has read The Boleyn Inheritance, we don't start off with a very good opinion of him in the first place.

I found this book gripping and managed to read it very quickly. I think I probably enjoyed it all the more for having read about the events that happened before it. It would be interesting to hear how it would come across to someone who begins with The Boleyn Inheritance instead of The Other Boleyn Girl.

Reading both books has certainly given me a totally different understanding of the history of Henry VIII. I think I can probably even manage to name the queens in order now, as well as identify what happened to each of them. In fact, my knowledge of English history has increased incredibly quickly, a very useful by-product of a couple of very entertaining and absorbing reads.