This wasn't her best story, but it was alright. The author takes a verrrrry sympathetic view of the king, which I just can't bring myself to consider. Henry's flirting with Katherine grossed me right out---him being old enough to be her father and quite bloated and unattractive. There was a lot of repetition in the narrative and dialogue ("troth-plighted"...ugh. So awkward and there are so many other synonyms for being engaged.) I must say though, she jumped right into the story and it grabbed my attention from the very beginning. This won't put me off Plaidy, by any means, but I just wasn't all that impressed with this story. ( )

This is my second time reading this novel, and it is so well done! I thoroughly enjoyed it, even as I was dreading the inevitable conclusion for this tragic feature in Tudor history. Catherine Howard just wasn't set up for success or protected by those who should have known better, and Plaidy treats her subject with sympathy. While you might rage against Catherine's flightiness or simplicity, you can't help liking her. She didn't deserve what happened to her.

Catherine Howard grew up in aristocratic poverty, but because she was pretty at a young age, her grandmother plucked her from her home and brought her to her abode. This is where her troubles begin. The structure of the novel is Catherine talking to a scribe the night before she dies to relay her life and try to identify where she "went wrong". Although she recognized that moving to her grandmother's home started the troubles, she couldn't prevent it. Once she's old enough (and by that, she's a measly 11 years old!), Catherine takes place in the illicit sex games the other, older girls engage in, thus compromising her honor. Eventually, this leads to her downfall.

Because she doesn't understand the motives of others, she gets in trouble with the musician Manox and then Francis Derham. Both men are set on seducing her, but it's clear they have ulterior motives. Derham is instrumental to Catherine's downfall. They call each other "husband" and "wife" while engaging in sexual acts. However, Catherine is barely an adolescent, and it's clear that she's too naive to engage in this kind of relationship, yet everyone just thinks it's so funny that the duchess's granddaughter has fallen that no one steps in. Now, you may ask, "how can anyone be this innocent?" Oh trust me. These people exist. I've met people who were just so ignorant that they had no idea what they were doing was sex and that it would produce a baby. Blame the education system, but don't blame these poor fools.

Eventually, Catherine falls into the path of her cousin Thomas Culpepper and, through him, the King of England. Because she's a relatively simple girl who loves love, she takes to marriage with the king like a duck to water, even forgetting about Culpepper and Derham for a time. King Henry is besotted with her, and who can blame him. He wasn't the first older man to fall for a barely legal girl, and he definitely isn't the last (looking at you Leo DiCaprio).

Mostly, Henry loves her because she doesn't ask for much beyond pretty clothes and jewels. She is nothing like her cousin, clever and secretive Anne Boleyn, who haunts the narrative. She also never tries to influence the king like Katherine of Aragon. For these reasons (and for her stupidity in committing adultery with Culpepper), historians have been rough on Catherine with comments ranging from calling her a stupid whore to a juvenile delinquent. Aside from the whole adultery bit, I find these comments unreasonable. The poor kid wasn't given any boundaries or expected to do anything. Her education was sorely neglected, and she was never set a proper example. How was she supposed to know any better when she wasn't taught better? How was she supposed to influence the king in policy? She didn't know anything! Given this, her end was as inevitable as it was tragic.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves the Tudors. The portrayals of the different characters are fascinating, and Catherine Howard is finally humanized and completely sympathetic that readers can't help but root for her, even though we all know how this ends. I'm sure not all of the portrayals are accurate, but I can't help it. Plaidy sucked me in, and that's the sign of a talented author. ( )

The Queens of England series is Jean Plaidy's retelling of novels she's already written. The difference being the earlier novels are in the third person; TQOE books are in first person. Originally, this author wrote about Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard in one novel. In TQOE series, she gave them a book each.

That said, Katherine technically shares this one with Anne. Anne is referred to many times throughout the novel, yet at no point does she feature in a scene with Katherine. Too much second-hand reporting of Anne proved to be an irritating element.

This quote, for example, is one of Katherine's dry second-hand reports about Anne that sounds like part of a textbook, not a novel:

'The King and Queen had been together at the May Day joust, seated side by side in the royal box. The King did not speak to the Queen, and it was clear to everyone that all was not well between them. The King was glum, while the Queen put on an air of false gaiety in an effort to maintain the pretense of harmony.'

Following another dry and detailed paragraph about Jane taking Anne's place as queen, including remarks on how the king was feeling, we get this sentence:

'I suppose I did not give a great deal of thought to these matters then.'

The above quote sums up a key problem with the whole story. We hear reports that come to Katherine, rather than the matters that she did give a great deal of thought about. In other words, there's not much character development and we arguably know more about a character who doesn't appear in any scenes (Anne) that we know about Katherine who's narrating.

Presenting dry facts, like the quote below, that have nothing to do with Katherine's story are off-topic and should have been cut:

'What was particularly shocking in the case of Anne and her brother was that it was due to Lady Rochford’s evidence that the case against her husband and sister-in-law was brought.'

Below is a reference to Wyatt, who until this point receives no mention in the story:

'Thomas Wyatt was lucky. He escaped death and went abroad.'

Why mention Wyatt? He's part of Anne's story, not Katherine's. Anything like this should've been edited out.

Unneccesary info on Wolsey, who again was part of Anne's story, not Katherine's, is included:

'We were at Hampton Court—one of the King’s favorite palaces, presented to him by Cardinal Wolsey in an attempt to regain his favour.'

For Katherine's narrative, the reader doesn't need to know about Wolsey's attempts to regain favour.

Katherine's life is covered from age ten to eleven, then skips to fifteen, and subsequently to eighteen. That's five years that could've been dramatized instead of including overlong sections of reporting on other people whom Katherine has no direct involvement.

Instead of the author using her imagination to build Katherine's character, we get more secondhand reports:

'The boy was to be named Edward. I heard accounts of his baptism: how he was taken from his nursery in Hampton Court to his mother’s chamber, accompanied by the sound of trumpets, while poor Jane lay there, pale, wan, desperately trying to take part in the ceremonial ritual. It lasted for three hours and at the end of it Jane was in no condition to understand what was happening. The King, however, insisted on her presence. They said he could not take his eyes from the baby Prince, who behaved with impeccable good manners throughout the proceedings and gave only the occasional whimper.'

The above is Jane's story. Why 'tell' the reader about this instead of 'showing' what Katherine's doing and relating her feelings, and so on?

Like with other Plaidy novels, the author is trying to squeeze in every historical event of note into one back, as this second-hand report on Anne of Cleves demonstrates:

'This is what Hans Holbein did, and he painted a beautiful picture. It came in an ivory box, shaped like a rose, I heard, and when it was opened, the portrait was disclosed, lying at the bottom of the box. The King was enchanted. He was not interested in the lady’s religion. What he cared about were her personal attractions and, according to the exquisite miniature, they were completely desirable. So the King would marry Anne of Cleves.'

The above is followed soon after by this apt sentence:

'Now there were reports of what had happened at the royal meeting.'

'Reports' being the right word for this dull book.

We get some backstory on Katerine of Aragon too, just to make sure everyone of note is mentioned, though the author has written a lot on Henery's first queen, so luckily this isn't overdone.

Sadly, we do get more dry reports of other people of note, including Thomas Cromwell:

'He had been very annoyed when Cromwell had been made Chamberlain and the title of Earl of Essex had been bestowed on him. The Duchess had let that slip during one of the massage sessions.'

The above dry quote also overuses 'had', which is repeted a lot throughout the book. This is inevitable when you're reporting events and using reported speech. The frequent use of ‘had’ in the past perfect tense is something all authors should avoid. It reports on the scene as opposed to taking the reader into the action as it unfolds.

Reported speech is another dry element:

'“How old are you, Katherine?”
I told her.
“You seem younger,” she said.'

Why not put 'Eighteen' in dialogue and keep the prose active, rather than the passive reported speech of 'I told her'?

Reported speech is worse when it's written in a paragraph like this:

'I began to stammer that I knew he would be grieved, and I was sorry for it. I had wanted to tell the King what had happened right at the beginning, but had been prevented from doing so.'

The above quote could've been dramatized if put into dialogue, rather than 'telling' what happened.

Dialogue must have a sense of place for a scene to be properly envisioned. Yet, at times there's no sense of place. A scene opens with dialogue but the reader doesn't know where the characters are, if they're sitting or standing, in a crowd or indoors, etc.

Similar to the above, there are a couple of instances where there are numerous people speaking, but you don't 'hear' them, because it's a series of lines of dialogue. It's meant to represent a group of women gossiping, but it's poorly done.

'Telling' with descriptions like 'She was really surprised' shows a lack of imagination. Even worse is:

'When he was brought to me, I thought he looked very sad.'

In the above quote, we don't 'see' him enter, and we are 'told' how he looks. This could easily have been dramatized for a more visual scene.

Most people reading this book will know of Katherine's fate, so I won't mark the following as a spoiler, but in case anyone reading this isn't familiar with her historty, please skim to the last paragraph.

The scribe, whom Katherine's been relating her story (and everyone else's!) throughout takes over the narrative to tell (and I do mean 'tell') us of Katherine's beheading. It lacks emotion and feeling and it's soon over. Yet, the book does not end here.

Rather than briefly exploring the feelings of Katherine's grandmother or King Henry, or someone else relevant to Katherine's life to round the story off, it instead closes like pure non-fiction, discussing Henry's children (all three being future monarchs, so the author couldn't overlook them, despite their having no relevance to Katherine's story), and then we get this textbook-like quote:

'On the twelfth of July of the year 1543, one year and five months after Queen Katherine Howard had lost her head, the King was married to Catherine Parr.'

So, the author had to include all six of Henry's queens, including the one who was crowned after Katherine's death. Not the ending I recommend to anyone who's writing a first-person account of Katherine Howard.

Something about Jean Plaidy’s books keep me coming back for more. Perhaps it’s her obvious love for English and French history, which I share, that draws me back. I wish she’d focused less on turning out as greater quantity of novels as possible and concentrated more on quality writing. A novel like this one should be revised about 20 times, yet this at best feels like a third draft. This one was badly put together. Endless second-hand reports, most of which have no relevance to Katherine Howard, ruin what could've been a great novel. Some scenes in the early part of the book, when Katherine's a child and goes to live with her grandmother, are good at times. For this reason only have rather 'A Rose Without a Thorn' two stars instead on one. ( )

I really enjoyed this book but I wasn't surprised because she has become one of my favorite authors. This is the first book I've read on Katherine Howard that did not make her look completely stupid. It really showed why she was the way she was - a product of her circumstance. ( )

Quick, easy read of a tragic story. ( )