Anne has long been a favorite historical figure and Weir captures her personality quite ably. It’s a long book but with this woman at the fore, the pace didn’t lag, as Katherine’s story occasionally had. It helps that Anne is more lively than her predecessor.

The writing itself is still a bit stiff when it comes to character interaction but the author’s sense of time/history is excellent. She does a good job of showing Henry as a capricious mix of antagonist and love interest ★★★.5/5

I found this book to be a vast improvement from the first in the series in several ways. First, the writing seemed to be much more lively. In the book on Anne Boleyn's predecessor the writing was stiff, whereas here it was more down-to-earth. Possibly the difference had to do with the subject. Second, I found the story from Anne's POV to be much more entertaining, and believable. Most books that I've read on Anne Boleyn with a 3 person narrative tended to make her out to be a scheming hateful person, but she comes across much better in this book.

However, as much as I enjoyed these differences there were still aspects that could stand some improvement. The book could have stood additional editing - there were way too many detailed scenes that could have been eliminated and the story still would have been just as good. The first half /three quarters of the book had Anne as a strong decisive woman, but the last section has her as a whiny paranoid hag. Only the last scenes with her in the tower redeemed the last section.

Overall, a fascinating look at a woman who may have only wanted to improve the world and had to take Henry VIII as a husband to do it.

I have read many Tudor fiction books, old and new. This was very good. Alison Weir always writes in such a way that it's apparent she has researched the material extensively, and this book was no different. The book doesn't just begin at Annes arrival in England from France, or her courtship with Henry, but takes you all the way back to her childhood and goes right up until the execution. I have read a few Anne Boleyn novels that give a character's description of it, but I think this may be the first I've read to gives Anne's firsthand account of the execution... and Mrs Weir does not pull any punches either. It was graphic and hard to read (which may bother a very few)... but it was what happened to her. I'm excited she's writing about all the wives, can't wait for the next one!

Alison Weir has been on my radar for some time, mostly for her incredible nonfiction work, so I was excited to see that she is venturing into fiction with a great series on the wives of Henry VIII. Of those wives, the most famous is, of course, Anne Boleyn. This second book in the series focuses on her from a young age and spans the years from 1512-1536, covering the majority of her life.

It is often easy to cast Anne Boleyn as an almost villainous woman but I was glad to find that wasn't present here. Weir has spent many years researching Boleyn and it shows. She is a fully three-dimensional character who is not free of faults or flaws.

The tragic story of Anne Boleyn has found new life here. I am interested to see what Weir will do with the rest of the wives.

This book tells the lush story of the fiery Anne Boleyn. Loved and hunted, she was not always so sought after. Sent to foreign courts as a young girl, Anne is no English Rose. She watches and learns. When she returns to England, her life drastically changes.

Weir captures Anne's entirety: her spirit, her drive, and her heartbreak. Weir writes a powerful book detailing the life of what is arguably one of England's most powerful queens.

I can’t resist a good book from Alison Weir so I was beyond excited to find this one on Netgalley. Sadly, I didn’t enjoy this one as much ass some of her other books. It could have just been me (I’m not a fan of Anne Boleyn) but I just didn’t feel this book was at quite the same standard as most of Weir’s Books.

**I received a copy from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review**

In continuing with Ms. Alison’s Weir’s Tudor Queen series, I can’t tell you how excited I was for this one in particular. Anne Boleyn is one of my favorite historical figures. I thought this would be a fantastic read.

My friends….I could not have been more wrong. I seldom give up on a book. But this one defeated me. For as much love as Ms. Weir has for Queen Catherine, her disdain for Anne was readily apparent from almost the first page. I understand she is writing about all six wives, but try to hide your dislike!

Some shy away from reviewing a book that they haven’t finished, but I think it’s worth sharing my thoughts. I do enjoy Ms. Weir’s books usually but not this time. It’s fair to say that I’m actually annoyed that such a renowned historian would be blatantly biased.

Let’s begin by saying, I did actually like reading about Anne’s years abroad, where she learned the manners and grace that made her so famed and sought after. There’s never really been a description of that in any books and so it was interesting to get a view of that and to know what her life was like abroad. Margaret of Austria wrote to Sir Thomas Boleyn of Anne, “so presentable and so pleasant, considering her youthful age, that I am more beholden to you for sending her to me, than you to me.” I enjoyed that greatly. It gave me more of an insight into Anne’s youth, which is something I’ve been left to wonder about. Beyond that, it went to hell quickly.

I was kind of in awe that rape is mentioned pretty willy-nilly in this. It’s insinuated that George Boleyn, Anne’s brother, is a rapist. (And even though he told Anne, she kind of brushed it aside as if it were nothing.) There is nothing in history to support this. Ms. Weir also brings up Mary Boleyn being raped. Twice! Once by King Francis I and the second by Henry VIII. Again, there is nothing to support this claim and it’s a shame that Ms. Weir fell into the ‘I don’t like you, so I will write terribly about you’ way of things. It was rather disgraceful, truth be told. Another strange thing is that Ms. Weir wrote of the Boleyn siblings having two elder brothers; it’s well documented that Elizabeth Howard only had three children who lived to adulthood: Anne, Mary and George.

I’m all for creative license. I really am; make it interesting. Make it fun. But if you are writing ‘historical fiction’–be mindful of history. Impressionable readers may take falsehoods as absolutely truth.

Most of us have an idea of what Henry VIII was like; his life is quite well documented. We know he could be charming as all get out and we also know how that could change as quickly as the wind blew. But in this, he was not at all the usual Henry. It’s an insult to his memory, truth be told. Henry is a love sick fool. Yes, he was in love with her–or lust–but he still tended to his everyday business and didn’t sit pining away like a besotted teenage girl. There’s no depth to him, he’s just the King and he wants Anne. He feels one dimensional and whether that changed as the book went on, I don’t know. If the beginning is any indication, then I’m glad I didn’t continue.

I suppose I’m spoiled by Margaret George’s book, ‘The Confessions of Henry VIII’, where Henry is so vividly described that he basically jumped out of the book. If you’re going to write about one of the most well known figures in British history, one would think that you’d really take him on and do him justice. He’s shown as being easily manipulated. Does Henry VIII look like a man who was easily manipulated?! And if you don’t go by his portrait, this is a man who signed death warrants on a regular basis. I don’t think so!

Ms. Weir also writes of Anne having a sixth finger and moles all over, which most seem to discredit. Henry was notoriously paranoid about these sort of things; if there was something unattractive about Anne, odds are he would not have been so besotted with her. Anne has been described as beautiful in a non-conventional way. Eustace Chapuys, one of Anne’s biggest detractors, would have jumped on the opportunity to write if Anne was deformed in anyway. Most of these rumors started long after Anne was dead; Nicholas Sander, a Catholic who had been exiled during Elizabeth I’s reign wrote that Anne “…had a projecting tooth under the upper lip, and on her right hand, six fingers.”

I could go on complaining about the bit I read, but I think you’ve gotten my drift. I did not enjoy much of this book and odds are, I’ll never pick it up again, even if it’s on discount when I head to Books-A-Million.

I don’t know if I’ll read the next one in the series, but I suppose we’ll see as time goes on.

Alison Weir takes us back to the court of Henry VIII with the story of his second wife, Anne Boleyn. The story is very similar to her previous book, Katherine of Aragon, The True Queen and covers many of the same events - only from Anne's perspective. While drawing on the same material, Anne is presented as being loyal to the queen in the beginning and wanting nothing to do with Henry. She only wants to marry Henry Percy. When that is denied, due to the interest of the king, Anne wants revenge on the person she feels is responsible, Cardinal Wolsey. Gradually, Anne sees the good that she may be able to do in regards to the Reformation/Protestantism if married to Henry and starts to warm to the idea. Her treatment is Katherine is more a result of that than in any desire to harm her. It is only when she fails to deliver the promised son that Anne really starts to fight for what she feels is hers - earning the enmity of the everyone, including Henry.

It is hard to write a book about a person such as Anne where a lot has already been written. People have their opinion of Anne. Weir tries to present Anne as more than the scheming whore or the unwilling victim that she is often pictured to be. Anne here is more complex but is still ultimately a pawn in family ambition. Like the prior book, you also wonder what if...what if Anne would have had a son. What would have changed.

As a sucker for all things Tudor, and after reading Weir’s story of Katherine of Aragon, I could not WAIT to get my hands on this one. I have read all of Philippa Gregory’s installments and loved them. This was a very different take on the story of Anne. It starts with her as a very young girl and shows how the choices her family made for her and the homes they put her in shaped her view on the world and on life. When you look at the women she served in Europe, she really was a feminist at heart. She made sure that women had access to education and wanted to prove that women could rule just as effectively as men. Of course, we all know how well that was received.



While other views of Anne Boleyn show her as a power-hungry woman who was ruthless in taking down Queen Katherine, Weir didn’t portray her as such. In fact, Weir shows her as a girl who was a victim of her family’s greed and hunger for power. As with most accounts I have read of Anne, she was definitely known to have a temper, particularly with Henry. I found myself feeling sorry for her and regretting that there have been women who have been treated ruthlessly in the powerful games played by the Aristocracy. I still see Henry as the little boy who never grew out of the bratty, “I want it now” phase. And it didn’t help that so many people were so worried about losing their heads that they agreed with everything he did and even provided his justifications for it



As with all history, I feel it’s important to know what went on in the past so as not to repeat the same things in the future. I love reading these stories of people in the Tudor era. If you are a fan of historical fiction, I HIGHLY recommend this one. Five out of five stars. Can’t wait to see what Weir puts out next!



Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.

I think it’s safe to say that if you have a love of history, as well as a keen interest in royalty, there is a strong probability you’re fascinated with King Henry VIII, and his many wives. It’s also likely you remember the order of his wives thanks to this mnemonic device: Divorced (Katherine of Aragon), beheaded (Anne Boleyn), died (Jane Seymour), divorced (Anne of Cleves), beheaded (Catherine Howard), survived (Catherine Parr). Such is the case with me… my fascination with Henry VIII and his wives took root as soon as I first learned about him.

Through the years, I’ve done a fair amount of reading on the subject—both fictional and factual—but I must confess that of all the wives, it’s the story of Anne Boleyn that most strongly captured my interest. Depending upon the writer of the book (or article), Anne Boleyn was either a conniving, manipulative woman who seduced the king and was guilty of adultery during their marriage, or a woman who genuinely loved her husband (and also enjoyed wielding the power that came with being Queen of England), who was wrongly accused and ultimately put to death so that the King might find a new Queen to provide him with the longed-for male heir to the throne. I, myself, am sympathetic towards Anne and like to think that her character lies somewhere in the middle—not completely good, but not completely bad, either. Sadly, much of the truth of her life has been lost over the centuries, so there’s no way to be completely sure of the type of woman she was; whether history has recorded her nature truly or falsely is something we can never know for certain. Perhaps it is for that reason Anne Boleyn is such an attractive subject to write about in novels, weaving known facts with speculations on what her life, and her motivations as Queen, were like.

Anne Boleyn: A King’s Obsession is historical fiction at its finest. Weir’s vision of Anne’s life may differ with those of Boleyn enthusiasts, but I didn’t let my own preconceived notions about Anne interfere with my enjoyment of the book… and I enjoyed it immensely. I found it to be a wonderfully written novel, and I was reluctant to set it aside, but even I have to sleep sometimes.

Weir does a fine job, in this reader’s opinion, of making Anne neither sinner nor saint in totality. There are times Anne strays closer to one side or the other for a while, but this served to bring her to life in my mind, showing her to be a complex person prone to conflict of thought and feeling, rather than the caricature she could easily have become in the writings of a less skilled author.

For me, the most intense part of the novel was Anne’s impending death. I could feel her shock at the accusations against her, her despair when she realized Henry would not intervene and prevent her death, and, finally, her acceptance of the inevitable. Weir’s Anne goes to her execution gracefully, with a quiet dignity that is unshakeable right up to her final moments. The death scene itself was not at all what I expected, but something more… it was unique (compared to other scenes I’ve read about Anne’s beheading) and made a sad ending even more heartbreaking.

I highly recommend novel this to Tudor enthusiasts. I think this is a novel you will enjoy getting lost in for a while.

(NB: King Henry VIII’s marriages to Katherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves didn’t actually end by divorce, but rather by annulment.)

This is book two in Weir’s series Six Tudor Queens and I highly recommend it. The first novel was about Catherine of Aragon (The True Queen). So much about the times is written with Henry VIII as the focus but Weir uses exhaustive research and her background as a historian to unearth details that give these women a real voice. Anne was not simply a foolish vixen thrown in the king’s path by her power hungry father. She had goals of her own and was highly intelligent. More importantly, she was significantly more nuanced than most history has ever portrayed her. I'm a geek for historical fiction about the Tudors and I still learned things about this fascinating woman. Don’t let the novel’s length dissuade you, Weir is a skilled storyteller who writes engrossing reading.

I am a huge fan of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, so I was excited to start this book. Particularly because it was written as a fictional telling of the story. Although the author added an interesting take, the story was slow-paced and overly detailed. It focused too much on the long wait for their marriage and caused it to drag on. The repetition of unnecessary and uninteresting moments, along with the simplistic writing style, made this book a tough one to get through. In contrast, the chapters focusing on the dramatic, final days of Anne's life were rushed and could have used more attention. Overall, the fictional aspects added new insights and showed Anne in a new light, perhaps even introducing a little sympathy toward her. Henry, however, seemed to be portrayed as weak. Still, a good read for any true fans of the royals and their history.

Too often literature focuses its attention on Anne Boleyn as a conniving woman, or as a witch who tricked the King into marriage. There are some who choose to look at her through her daughter’s eyes and see a woman who was torn away from her daughter. Her time spent in the courts of others is usually just a brief mention in order to hurry her along into the arms of Henry the Eighth. I really appreciate the way author Alison Weir has taken the time to show the path that was taken before she became the notorious Queen that we most know her as. But instead of following up with this idea of a woman doing what she had to for her family and for her own survival, it seems strange that it instead slips into a strange world where some of our prominent men are rapists,though this was never proven, and other obviously fictional and unnecessary elements were added in order to make the story more interesting.
I understand that with such a well-written subject it can become difficult to write anything new about the story, I enjoyed the story of her youth and the interesting views of some of the other strong women in her life. It only seems like Weir seems to slip into a caricature of Boleyn that seems old and outdated. This made the book a toss-up for me. On the one hand I enjoyed the new look at young Anne but when she comes of age, she becomes the villain again. It seems to be a very strange route to take. This is going to be one of those books that you will either really enjoy or won’t be able to finish. I finish them in order to be fair but I know many don’t have that requirement.

*This eBook was provided by NetGalley and Ballantine Books in exchange for honest feedback**

In the second book of the Six Tudor Queens series, Alison Weir focuses on the life of Anne Boleyn. In this historical fiction novel, Anne is portrayed as a woman ahead of her time. She had grown up in the courts of Margaret of Austria and Marguerite of Valois. Therefore, she had Renaissance ideals and believed in reforming the Catholic Church. She is also a young girl who dreams of marrying for love. When she catches the eye of Henry VIII, at first she spurns his advances because he is a married man. Yet, when he decides to make her his queen, Anne reluctantly agrees, believing that by being queen, she can put her beliefs into practice. Anne eventually becomes in love with power. However, as her unpopularity grows and her tempestuous relationship with Henry continues, Anne begins to wonder if the glittering crown of England is worth it in the end.

Anne Boleyn is a very fascinating and controversial figure. Mrs. Weir decides to tell the story from Anne’s point of view. We follow Anne from when she first joins the court of Margaret of Austria to her execution. We see what led to her decision in supplanting Katherine to become queen. Anne definitely has her flaws. She is temperamental, power-hungry, controlling, and vengeful. She wants to destroy those who have hurt her. However, there are moments of Anne’s vulnerability when she questions her ruthless actions. At first, she is reluctant to hurt Katherine because of the kindness she bestowed on her. In, the end, she is remorseful at the trouble and pain that she caused Katherine’s daughter Mary. Thus, Anne is a deeply complex character.

Overall, Anne Boleyn: A King’s Obsession is an in-depth psyche about Anne Boleyn’s motivations and her actions. While Anne Boleyn was a deeply complex character, the rest of the cast were flat. This may have been because the story was told from her point of view. Even though this was a long novel, the story was very fast-paced. Therefore, some of the scenes were rushed, and it left me a bit disappointed because I would have loved for Mrs. Weir to have spent more time developing the characters. Still, this is by far the best novel I have read on Anne Boleyn, and I will definitely be re-reading it. This is because despite its flaws, I thought the story was beautifully written. It seemed as if I was in Tudor England and walking alongside Anne until the moment when her head is chopped off. Thus, while I did like Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen, Anne Boleyn: A King’s Obsession has surpassed it. I can’t wait to read Alison Weir’s next novel in the Six Tudor Queens about Jane Seymour!

I really, really enjoyed Anne Boleyn, A King’s Obsession by Alison Weir. I am totally obsessed with learning more about Tudor history, especially Henry VIII’s six wives, and this look into Anne Boleyn’s life was both interesting and disturbing at times.

I believe this book tells a very compelling story about Anne’s early life, her flirtation and eventual marriage to the king, and her cruelty to those around her. I read Katherine’s story last year and really wondered if I could like Anne as a character. From Katherine’s point of view, Anne was evil incarnate and stole her husband. Anne’s book painted a different picture of Anne, yes she could be cruel, but Henry was his own man and made his own decisions.

I can certainly say that I did not care for Anne’s character – I didn’t like her. But I’m not sure that Anne is a likable person. We are judging Anne through 21st century eyes, she is a homewrecker, she slept with her employer’s (Katherine) husband and slept with the guy who slept with her sister. Right there, there isn’t much to like. She was scheming – I believe she had to be in order to be queen. I like to think, after reading this book, that she regretted some of her choices. I think she was initially shocked to learn that Henry was pursuing her and was shocked that she could be queen.

The last few chapters, when Anne’s downfall becomes apparent, are hard to read. Alison Weir did what I wasn’t sure she could do – I felt sorry for Anne. I knew what was going to happen, and I felt for her, I wanted to read that she got a last-minute reprieve. I wanted her history to be different and I wanted to understand Henry’s decision to kill her. I still don’t understand his decision to carry out the ultimate punishment.

Anne may have very well been a lady ahead of her time, she was smart, and when I look at her portrait I think she was very pretty. She was educated and witty, she was also pushy and whiney. I may not “like” her, but she intrigues me. She convinced a man to set aside his wife, his first-born daughter, his church – all of it for her. Henry was definitely obsessed and she played the game.

Again, I highly recommend this book to all lovers of Tudor history. I really wanted to know more about Anne as a person and I can’t wait to read Jane Seymour’s side of these conflicts. Remember, Jane served both Katherine and Anne – should be interesting reading!

(Thank you Netgalley for an early reader copy in exchange for an unbiased review)

If you've read a ton of books on Anne Boleyn (like I have), you won't learn much new or different from Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession, but you will get an interesting, well written, well researched tale of Anne Boleyn from her teen years through her death. If this is your first foray into Henry VIII's wives, this story of Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife will be a pleasure to read.

Although Anne is most famous for losing her head, she had quite an impact on English life, particularly religious life. She was an intelligent, well educated woman, from a highly ambitious family. This book is the second in a series on Henry VIII's wives; I am looking forward to reading them all !

A big thank you to Alison Weir, Ballantine Books, and Netgalley for the free copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Weir is the Queen of British historical fiction. I've read many of her books through the years and enjoyed them all. Color me surprised that she has a new series! I dove right in.

Relying heavily on contemporary resources Weir weaves a magnificent tale of an independent feminist caught in a web of power and deceit. Reared in the courts of Burgundy and France, Anne learns to appreciate the significance of a ruling woman. She also explores reforms in religion. She's brought home in her late teens to be a lady-in-waiting for the queen of England, Katherine of Aragon, where she meets Henry VIII, a man who in no way impresses her no matter how forcefully he flatters her.

Anne's family includes many ambitious members. Soon she sees the advantages of being a celibate mistress of the king. Gifts and grants flow her way, but because of her experiences in the foreign courts she holds her virtue as the ultimate prize, which causes her to be most alluring. She has numerous admirers but none as dominating as the Great Hal. As we all know this all eventually leads to the great schism of the Church of England, the first beheading of a queen consort, and the continuation of Henry's wrathful rule.

Weir admits to playing with history a bit to assist the flow of the story. There are a few bits that conflict with what I've always believed about Anne's tale that I'm not certain come from this interpretation or if they are actually new facts coming to light. We don't have much documentation saved regarding Anne's personality or point-of-view. Weir presents a valid argument here. It's easy to believe from Weir's evidence that Anne eventually caved in to the pressure and sought out the crown and the possibility of being the mother the the heir to the throne. I agree there was no love in her heart for the king. He was a means to an end. Sadly, he was her end.

Bravo, Weir, on a painstakingly put-together work. Anne's spirit lived again in your words.

A solid addition to the plethora of Anne Boleyn novels. I appreciate Weir's novels because of the great amount of research that has gone into them. I particularly liked that the novel begins well before her relationship with the King begins, and so we see the strong female rules who would shape Anne's views regarding church reform and feminism. The story drags in the middle during the six year courtship and divorce proceedings, though this feels intentional. Anne is also dragging and impatient, and the reader is forced along with her. I was also impressed that Weir did not shy away from attempting to describe Anne's ultimate demise. Without giving away details, though surely no spoiler alerts are necessary for such a well-known historical character who was beheaded hundreds of years ago, I'll just say that the descriptions were vivid, moving, and memorable. Overall, Anne is portrayed as a strong, ambitious, and deeply flawed woman. Though her private thoughts are lost to history, most of what is suggested here is entirely plausible. As always, the lengthy authors note at the end was also much appreciated.

Historian Alison Weir traces Anne’s journey to the block, from her childhood spent in European royal households through her courtship with and marriage to King Henry VIII, and her painful downfall in this novelization of true events.

I’ve been a longtime fan of Weir’s historical works, particularly her Six Wives of Henry VIII. Though this new novel is a piece of historical fiction, Weir’s depiction of Anne’s childhood years in Europe begins in matter-of-fact prose as if she were composing a work of straight history. I think Weir hits her narrative stride in the latter parts of the book, where we get swept up in the careening games of love and power that Anne enters – at first tentatively – upon her return to the English court. In that vein, Weir’s portrayal of Anne and Henry’s relationship as less of a love match, at least on Anne’s part. This is not a romance, but rather a story of a woman taken up by a king who was driven by unreciprocated amorous and sexual obsession, as Weir’s title suggests. Indeed, Weir emphasizes particularly in her exploration of Mary Boleyn and some of the Continental queens themes of sexual violence and domination that kings exercised upon unwilling female subjects, laying bare uneven sexual power dynamics and the deeply sad consequences they produced. These explorations bolster Anne’s reluctance to enter into a relationship with Henry, further supported by Weir’s depiction of Anne’s dedication to Katherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife whom the King eventually will put aside for Anne. However, following her sudden epiphany that the crown is within her grasp, Anne begins to yearn for power as much as Henry yearns for her, ultimately reciprocating his attentions and setting down a path that will ultimately prove fatal.

As their relationship progresses from flirtation to affair, and the couple’s plans to marry unfold, Weir successfully conveys the agonizingly long wait for a dispensation from Rome to annul the King’s first marriage, emphasizing how drawn out the process was before thoughts of church reformation began to bubble up. Finally, when Henry breaks from Rome and plans for the marriage are fulfilled, I felt fascinated to witness Anne’s euphoria in her early queenship, especially knowing what fate has in store for her. It’s almost like reading a howdunnit as opposed to a whodunnit. We know the end, but it’s remarkable how Anne gets there. In this respect, Weir is adroit at capturing Anne’s mounting fear and paranoia, reflected in a more stream-of-consciousness narrative style, as the Queen loses Henry’s favor after the delivery of a princess instead of a hoped-for male heir, and a series of miscarriages and marital fights that strain the royal couple’s relationship. In that style, we keenly feel how quickly Anne’s downfall comes to pass in the latter two parts of the book, as opposed to the former parts’ emphasis on protraction, delay, and uncertainty. Weir deftly conveys the swiftness of the fall, and the agony and increasing frenzy following Anne’s arrest and imprisonment, especially when those around her leave her in the dark as to the important details of her case. And she successfully conveys how Anne’s trial was a travesty of justice. The ending, capturing Anne’s final days, was tragic in the epic sense of the word – we see a woman literally lose everything she had worked towards, piece by piece, the result not only (in part) of her own hubris, but also the machinations of political forces far greater than herself. It is an undoing on a massive and complete scale. The final pages of Weir’s book which depict the morning of her execution up to the blow of the sword are truly haunting – they may even be viscerally upsetting to some readers (as it was for me).

For all the book’s strengths, there were some aspects that I found less enthralling. From the elevation of Anne’s potential romance with Henry Norris – one of the men convicted of adultery with the queen and executed just days before Anne – to her brother George’s involvement in an improbable and sensationalized murder plot, there were some elements of the story that felt like too much of a stretch. These plot points eliminate some of the poignancy of actual, historical events, and work against the idea of futility and arbitrariness of the divorces and deaths that marked this portion of Henry’s reign. Yet, Weir’s authorial note at the end of the book make clear her motivations for some instances of artistic license, and convey the depth of her research.

All things considered, Weir’s book was hard to put down, and I’d recommend it to anyone curious about Anne Boleyn, a fascinating and sometimes mysterious character who played an integral part in a captivating and dramatic portion of English history.

First Line: Her skin was rather sallow, Anne thought as she studied herself in the silver mirror, and she had too many moles, but at least her face was a fashionable oval.

Summary: Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, spent her early years in the courts of Burgundy and France. She learned from duchesses and queens on how to be a lady but it is a king that truly changes her life. When the King Henry VIII notices her and wants her to be his mistress Anne decides that she is not going to be used like other women of her time. She tries to discourage the king but to no avail. But when Henry proposes marriage to her, even though he is already married, she sets her sights on the ultimate power. After years of legal and religious battles she finally is crowned queen but it turns out to not be all that was promised.

Highlights: The descriptions are very detailed. I could feel the frustration with the Great Matter as much as Anne and Henry. Anne is a smart and passionate woman who knows what she wants and is willing to do whatever she can to achieve it. There is so much in this novel about a woman that very little is known. The author takes you all the way back to Anne's childhood which most books do not do.

Lowlights: I have read many books about Anne Boleyn. And a book that is written by a historian like Alison Weir, I was expecting more. There were things that I did not agree with in her descriptions of Anne such as the sixth finger. Plus she makes Anne seem more like a child at times when she was a powerful woman with strong beliefs.

FYI: Some of this is written for a more dramatic and fictional account than most historians have been able to back up. Great for a fun and interesting book about the life of Anne Boleyn, the unfortunate second wife of Henry VIII.