Anne Cato

Although for the most part the portrayal of Catherine Howard follows the mainstream literature portraying her as a thoughtless, fun-loving creature that lived only for her own pleasure and the fulfillment of base desires, it also asserts that she did not willfully deceive the king--- that she was actually caught up with the pressures from her family, and.the prospect of being queen, in an aftermath of thwarted love.
Her relationships with Dereham and Culpeper are depicted slightly different than traditional accounts, depicting Dereham as the more honorable of the two.… (mehr)

There was way, way, WAY too much sex in this book and it was way, way, WAY too explicit. It was like watching The Tudors -- or reading Harlequin Romance. I am not against explicit sex scenes in principal, but in this book they became a crutch and started to get very annoying.

However, I also found much to like about the book. Catherine Howard had more intelligence, spirit and personality than historians and most fiction writers have granted her, and I also liked Cato's characterization of Catherine's enigmatic and thoroughly creepy uncle, the Duke of Norfolk. And the book had reasonably good historical accuracy.

I would recommend this book to fellow Tudor junkies.… (mehr)