The Other Boleyn Girl (2001)

http://www.monniblog.com/2008/03/the-other-boleyn-girl/ ( )

I enjoyed this way more than The Queen's Fool, the only other Philippa Gregory I've read. Mary Boleyn felt like a fully fleshed character in a way that the other book's narrator never did. I still wasn't impressed though; I feel like there are plenty of other treatments of the era and people that are better done however.

I suspect I will not be picking up any more of Ms. Gregory's book; there are too many awesome authors in the world for me to not be picky. ( )

Fiction

While not the first Philippa Gregory novel I read (I had previously devoured her "Wideacre" series), this is the one that started my mini obsession with the Tudors and Plantagenets. Gregory is a historical researcher par excellence, yet also a magician with crafting easy-to-follow, historical stories that don't get bogged down in archaic language or situations. Thanks to Ms. Gregory, I am now something of an amateur expert (is there such a thing?! - ha ha) on Henry VIII, his wives, family, and court.

Mary Boleyn, the lesser-known sister of Anne Boleyn (Henry VIII's future second-wife), is our heroine in this tale. She's a likeable, golden girl who catches the king's eye, and, typical of the day, uses her relationship with the royal personage to her own advantage, and to that of her family. Yet, enter her younger sister, Anne, who has been raised at the saucy and lax French court, and you the recipe for my favorite quote from the book, which is something like, "We're sisters. Born to be rivals."

If I had one complaint, it would be that Gregory's modern-day taken on women and their role in the world does sometimes drive the narrative and characters' actions. That said, the quality of her work and research is of the upmost integrity and she strives with ardor to remain true to actual events.

This is the first of Gregory's novels on the Tudor court; chronologically it becomes #9 in the stream of later books published. I highly recommend reading them in the order they were written, as prequels rarely feel like they came first, since they are filling in pieces that were originally discussed in "later" books. If you're a lover of historical fiction, this is not one to be missed. ( )

Excellent historical fiction. I found that I had either forgotten or never known what the charges against Anne Boleyn were - quite shocking!

I was annoyed by the fact (historically accurate I am sure) that still births, miscarriages & deformities were all assumed to be the result of the mother's sins, never the father's. ( )