Thursday, April 28, 2011

The Constant Princess by Phillipa Gregory



Genre: Historical Faction
Distributor: Touchstone
Length: 393 pages
Rating: G
Author: Phillipa Gregory
Starring: Catherine of Aragon, Henry the 8th, Arthur
Theme: The Ruling Class is a Conniving Class
Comments: I confess, I love the Tudors. Catherine Parr is my favorite of Henry’s wives even though she had the bad taste to fall in love with Thomas Seymour. Catherine of Aragon is a favorite, too, even after this book. The Constant Princess is a story about a girl who was born to be Queen. Of course, for most of the book – maybe even a thousand times – she broadcasts, “I am the Princess of Wales.” Ten times would have done it for me. She marries (done very well in this book, especially the mention of Henry in white and the Duke of Buckingham’s welcome), puts up with, (with her future father in law and her ladies, and there’s a very rocky beginning with Arthur), falls in love (this was also done well), he dies (very quickly, but that’s also very true), and the rest of the book is a testament to her fortitude and conniving. This book had a lot of things to fall in love with, but with less soul searching narrations and repetitiveness, the book could have been longer so we could really see Anne Bolyn and then princess Mary in the conclusion. I honestly thought I'd missed a chapter when the end came. We went from victorious war with Catherine being honored to her trial and Mary was born and off stage.

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