Thanks to NetGalley and Hachette Books for an Advanced Reader Copy - pub date 11/12/2024. Anyone who knows me, knows that my favorite HVIII wife is Anne Boleyn so, of course, I snagged this book with glee. First off, it is very, very deep dive. It is all about Anne, taking us straight from what little is known of her childhood all the way through to the final tragic but dignified day at the block. However, it is also very all about the political climate and the scheming and the powerful men who held final sway over Anne's fate - King Henry VIII, King Francis I, Emperor Charles, and two popes. For all of her intelligence and charm, there is only so much one person can do against certain forces. Paranque makes sure we never see Anne as a complete victim, despite the situation, and awards her the agency and brains that the records of the time indicate. Perhaps too much agency at that time and too many brains and too much forcefulness - leading to the convenient and constant smearing of her name in the years following her death.

What did surprise me was the direction and focus Paranque placed on Anne's time and ties to France and how the politics influenced her fate. I can't say I ever thought outside of England when pondering Anne Boleyn. Sure, I knew she spent time in Francis' court and was refined and continental but I didn't stop to think about how close she was to the power players in the French court. The book features incredibly detailed research. While a lot of Anne's reactions and words are lost to history thanks to destruction of her letters and a deliberate erasure of her presence (Henry, you shit) so those areas had a level of educated estimation, Paranque based her theories on as much factual info as she could find. By widening the scope past England's borders, you get a better idea of who was for and who was against Ann, how those alliances shifted, etc. It was a much more nuanced and dangerous situation than it seemed.

At times, the book was try and there were A LOT of names and places to keep track of. However, it was all written clearly and as in-line as possible while still striving to let the reader understand the world at large, Anne's part in it, and how things could have gone another way... but it was almost inevitable that they didn't.

Over the last 15 years, we’ve seen a surge of enthusiasm among non-academic audiences for Tudor-era bios and histories, not to mention works of historical imagination like Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall (2009), which arguably ignited the trend. No surprise: The period — straddled at one end by the gargantuan Henry VIII and at the other by his cagey daughter, Elizabeth I — abounds in dazzling personalities. In Thorns, Lust, and Glory, Estelle Paranque zeroes in on one of the most controversial and fascinating of these somebodies, Anne Boleyn, Henry’s storied mistress and ill-fated second wife.

Paranque has given us an energetically researched — if somewhat narrowly conceived — take on Anne’s two-decade climb into the spotlight. The story begins with her sojourns as teenage lady-in-waiting to two queens of France and then, in the same role, with the English queen whom we know as the Spanish-born Catherine of Aragon. It’s here at Henry’s court, c. 1526, that Anne catches the king’s eye, and his pursuit of her kicks into gear. According to Paranque, the cosmopolitan Anne, her gaze fixed on a crown, holds the king chastely (or mostly so) at bay for seven years. And then, fully satisfied with his promise that the old queen will be set aside and Anne crowned, she yields:

“It has been rumored that the couple consummated their carnal relationship [in November 1532]…although no contemporary evidence exists to support this theory. It is certainly likely that Anne would have waited this long to consummate their relationship, because becoming queen was her goal, and she could not have afforded to give him an illegitimate child.”

That’s what Paranque claims, a bit too clairvoyantly perhaps, given the absence of “contemporary evidence.” Still, she’s not alone among scholars. Anne’s skill at deflecting the advances of the notoriously concupiscent Henry, it would seem, owed much of its success to the cultural vise grip of the Courtly Love craze (and Anne’s canny manipulation of its reluctant mistress convention) that pervaded Henry’s court. The king, otherwise used to the instant satisfaction of his every wishful urge, supposedly falls swooningly in line, inspired, or stupefied, by the spurned-but-ever-hopeful suitor role that Courtly Love assigned him. (Not all historians buy this view of the protracted non-consummation of the affair, but that’s a matter beyond the scope of this review.)

Nonetheless, Anne might indeed have played the long game brilliantly. She’d seen Henry’s mistresses come and go, her own married sister, Mary, among them. Plus, the resolution of “the King’s great matter” (i.e., a divorce from Queen Catherine) was anything but a sure bet, despite the assurances of Henry and his advisors.

The diplomatic tug-of-war over the divorce would drag on for years, embroiling European big-power relations: France on one side, Spain on the other. Pope Clement, meanwhile, the supposed decision-maker on the annulment, was playing for time, knocked off balance by the blooming Reformation to the north. What’s more, he was leery of alienating Henry, even as he (the pope) was under extreme pressure from — and briefly imprisoned by — the Spanish king (Queen Catherine’s nephew).

Long story short, by June of 1533, the more private tussle between Anne and Henry had certainly been settled. Six months pregnant, she marries Henry and, amid much pageantry, is crowned queen. Within a month, the pope abruptly annuls their marriage and excommunicates them both. In September, Anne gives birth to the daughter who will, 23 years later, become Elizabeth I. The child’s gender is a disappointment to Henry, who is banking on a son for dynastic reasons. Even so, this results in a period of marital calm, with Henry focused on consummating his lukewarm reformation by stripping his kingdom’s Catholic monasteries of their riches.

By 1536, Anne is pregnant again, but she suffers a miscarriage. This is too much for the king; Anne goes off to execution, tarred with trumped-up charges of adultery. She’s the first of two Henrician queens to suffer capital punishment for alleged adultery.

Sadly, Paranque’s perspective throughout is an almost exclusively diplomatic one. She’s thoroughly versed in the letters and related communications of a small handful of contemporary foreign observers, markedly the French and Spanish envoys to Henry’s court. These envoys report faithfully (though with opposing prejudices) on Anne’s rise and fall. Paranque provides context on the shifting-sands backdrop of the major powers’ rivalries for European dominance and, not insignificantly — given the religious circumstances and realpolitik of the era — their competition for papal favor.

And so, we’re left with a pretty narrow stab at Anne’s life and impact. Paranque, for all her fervency to court a gender-specific audience (note her book’s title), holds back potentially dramatic and narrative-enriching details. Notable among these is her failure to provide more than cursory detail about the plot to convict Anne of adultery with no fewer than five denizens at court, including her own brother and a royal musician.

There’s much lacking in Thorns, Lust, and Glory, but it’s an adequate introduction to Anne Boleyn’s life. Still, after reading it, you’re cheating yourself if you don’t follow up with any of the more substantial biographies.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hachette Books for the digital copy of this book; I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Okay, this wasn’t the worst book I’ve read on Tudor England, nor was it the best. One of the reasons is because I have this loathing that modern historians recreate dialogue and settings with fictional prose. Paranque relies on these constructs to advance the narrative, and that always makes it hard to me to read a book objectively. If she made up conversations, what else did she make up?

Secondly, since much of Anne Boleyn’s correspondence was destroyed, there’s a whole lot of supposition going on. I understand that for historians to draw conclusions based upon source material is common, yet the way the book was written, the times when it’s said “she must have felt” have no basis or corroborating references to facts.

It’s not that this is a terrible book. I’m all for modern historians to reframe the scorned women of history, a history written mostly by men, and bring forth a more sympathetic look. Let’s face it–Anne got the shaft, and everyone knows it. This book reflects that fact and shapes it in a way that modern sensibilities can digest. For that, I would still give this book three out of five stars.

A young woman catches the attention of a king already married to a princess from a faraway kingdom. The king desires the young lady and divorces his wife to marry her. However, there is a catch. The young lady spent some time in the French court of Francis I and Claude of France, whereas the king’s wife was the daughter of the Spanish King and Queen as well as the aunt of the Holy Roman Emperor. The Great Matter of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Catherine of Aragon is considered one of the messiest divorces in English history and rightfully so when you consider the diplomatic consequences that this divorce would have across Europe. Estelle Paranque highlights the connection between Anne Boleyn and the French court in her latest book, “Thorns, Lust, and Glory: The Betrayal of Anne Boleyn.”

I want to thank Hachette Books and Net Galley for sending me a copy of this book. I heard that Estelle Paranque was writing a new book about the 16th century, but when I heard that it dealt with Anne Boleyn’s connections with the French court, I jumped at the chance to read it. While I do know quite a bit about the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn, it is her connection with the French court that I have never really explored in depth.

Paranque begins her book by examining the meeting between King Henry VIII and King Francis I with Anne Boleyn at Calais between October 25th and 27th, 1532. This was a significant meeting as it was right before Henry and Anne married in secret and they desired that Francis would support their side in the Great Matter. But how did they get to this meeting in Calais? This is where this book shines as Paranque takes the time to show her audience what life was like for Anne in the French court and the connections that she forged with women like Louise of Savoy, Claude of France, and Marguerite of Angouleme Queen of Navarre. It was fascinating to see how the Boleyns were able to use their connections to forge alliances with the French court that would prove useful in the future.

Possibly my favorite part of this book was seeing how the diplomatic channels across Europe interacted with one another during the Great Matter, the queenship of Anne Boleyn, and the fall of the Boleyns. I think we so often overlook that there were diplomats who were working on the sidelines to convey messages between kings and emperors to form or strengthen alliances. While many might consider the way Paranque wrote the correspondence and dialogue between diplomats and the monarchy as hard to get used to because she does insert emotions, I believe it adds depth to the story because they were human beings not in a vacuum. They had feelings about what was happening around them, passionate feelings in fact, and that should be displayed to readers.

While the actual events of this book were not new to me, the way that Paranque was able to present the information and show the men behind the scenes was fascinating. It presents the relationship between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn in a different more complex light. If you want a different angle to the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn, I recommend you read, “Thorns, Lust, and Glory: The Betrayal of Anne Boleyn” by Estelle Paranque.

This was my first book by Estelle Paranque and I learned so much, not only about Anne Boleyn, but the politics of Europe at the time which eventually caused the Church of England to be formed. This wasn't as much of a biography as I thought it would be but it was a very decisive look at the formidable years that shaped the future wife of Henry VIII. Her time in the French court heavily influenced how she would take England by storm.

The timing of this book is perfect in that BBC has produced TV series about this time in history, Wolf Hall, that although focused on Thomas Cromwell, highlights Anne's rise and fall.

I do wish the author had included historical pictures of many of the main characters, just to give the readers a better idea of power players they had never heard of. Additionally, a timeline would have been useful. Overall though, I would recommend this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hachette Books for an eARC

This book re-examines Anne Boleyn’s life, tracing her formative years at the French court and revealing how her experiences there shaped her destiny and ultimately led to her tragic downfall in England.

I haven’t read an Anne Boleyn bio before that highlighted how Anne’s French sympathies helped counterbalance Catherine of Aragon’s connections to Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. It’s an interesting perspective.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Another book about Anne Boleyn? Yep, I'm in. This is shorter than many other books about her and her relationship with Henry VIII, so it's a good option if you're new to her story. If you're more familiar with this time period, I wouldn't necessarily recommend - it doesn't add a lot to the existing literature out there, and I felt that it didn't quite live up to its promise of giving her a voice. I realize there's a lot of context that is needed to understand her role in history, but I did expect a bit more from her perspective.

Thorns, Lust, and Glory: The Betrayal of Anne Boleyn by Estelle Paranque is a biography. Boleyn was the second wife of Henry VIII. I have always wanted to know more about Anne Boleyn, so I was happy when I got approved to read this book.

Paranque tells the reader in the introduction that she has taken the liberty to write what she thinks Anne Boleyn thought about certain things. Anne Boleyn's papers have been destroyed or lost. I had a problem with Paranque writing what she thought Anne Boleyn thought. How can anyone know what someone else is thinking or thought? Maybe, because Paranque has written a lot of history books, she thinks she has enough experience and knowledge to be able to write what Boleyn thought.

Paranque wanted to show that Anne was betrayed by France. Anne Boleyn spent her younger years at the French court. Francis I was a friend of hers that she and Henry VIII wanted his help with getting their marriage recognized by the church. He tried to help, but ultimately, politics came into play.

I think Anne Boleyn caused a lot of her own problems. She wanted to be Queen of England so badly that she didn't care what it took to get it. She was conceited. Anne enticed (for a better word) Henry VIII from Queen Catherine. Did she actually think that Henry VIII wouldn't leave her for another woman? She opened the door for him to figure out ways to get rid of his queens when they weren't giving him a male heir.

Tentative Publication Date:
November 12, 2024

Thanks to Netgalley and Hatchette Books for the E-ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

#Netgalley #HatchetteBooks #EstelleParanque #ThornsLustandGlory
#ARC #Readaway2024

I loathe and despise recreated dialogue in non-fiction - it’s like nails on a chalkboard to me. Nor am I fond of supposition in history books. Admittedly, Anne Boleyn didn’t leave much for historians to work with and what little she did leave has been obscured throughout the years… but still. I stand by my opinion that, if it can’t be backed up by evidence, it doesn’t belong in a history book. If Paranque wanted to make up dialogue and theories, she should just have written a novel.

I grew up in a family with a sort of Tudor Monarchs hobby. We watched documentaries together. We sought out trivia and anecdotes. Tensions in the air? Teetering on the edge of an outburst? The Tudors were a safe topic, one that could have us speaking civilly again. Given that, is it any wonder that I was eager to get my hands on a review copy of an upcoming Anne Boleyn biography?

What makes Thorns, Lust, and Glory different from so many other Tudor titles is that it really focuses on Anne. Given the historical material available, Estelle Paranque has done an effective job of helping us to see Anne as Anne and not as wife number two, the first one to be beheaded.

Paranque occasionally oversteps when she presents material she's inferred as fact, describing emotions as Anne's when really they're just her own best guess. But readers can forgive this in exchange for a narrative that's truly Anne-centric.

If you're interested in the Tudors, particularly the six women whose lives get summed up in the rhyme "divorced, beheaded, died/divorced, beheaded, survived," you'll find Thorns. Lust, and Glory an compelling read.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

This was definitely an interesting read for anyone interested in Tudor history. Paranque makes some interesting inferences about Anne Boleyn being a "French princess" and that she was betrayed by France despite acting in French interests. I'm not necessarily sure where the author derives this particular motive-- but it is interesting nonetheless!

Unfortunately after her execution, traces of Anne Boleyn were wiped out-- leaving much to speculation of what she felt/thought during her life. I commend Paranque for continuing to give our voiceless Boleyn the spotlight. For further reading, I highly recommend The Creation of Anne Boleyn by Susan Bardo-- which heavily touches on her erasure from history and how she was portrayed throughout history after her death.

I really enjoyed this fresh approach to Anne Boleyn's history. The author made a lot of choices so the book eead more like historical fiction at times, but everything was still rooted in the actual history of her circumstances.

The writing was concise and very easy to read, and learning about Boleyn's life through the lens of her role in the French court offered a new perspective that I hadn't been previously given.

Overall, a great read on a very interesting subject.

Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my review.

⚜️ Anne Boleyn is one of the most controversial, yet enduring, figures in history. And now, with this brilliant work by @estelleprnq - her rise to glory and eventual fall from grace, is charted like never before. For, behind this woman was a slew of influential people, intent on increasing their power and fortune and staking it all on Anne Boleyn. And, when Anne failed to provide the much longed-for male heir, those same people abandoned her as quickly as they had risen to support her. Chief among these were the French king, Francis I and his court and ambassadors. Paranque details the history and backstory of many of the most influential - yet often overlooked - figures in orchestrating Anne's rise. With no foreign royal family to fall back on for protection, Anne used the French as a pseudo-safeguard against the bloody machinations of the Tudor Court. Unfortunately, to quote Taylor Swift, "Blood's thick, but nothing like a payroll." And unfortunately, Anne exemplifies the lives of many women in history whose protection fails to exist when they cease to be of value to men's ambitious machinations. I thoroughly enjoyed this look at Anne's life through this lens and will continue to keep me awake into the night with a whole new slew of "what-ifs." And, I invite you to do the same ❤️
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I received this book in return for an honest review from @netgalley

I enjoyed this a lot; you would think that after all these years and all these books, there's nothing new to be said about Anne and Henry but that would be wrong. I really liked the approach of looking at the story from the relationship between Anne and the various members of the French court, that's a different approach. I have another book by Paranque on my TBR (Blood, Fire and Gold) and it's definitely moving to the top of the pile.

A very good telling of the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn. Explains many reasons why Anne was executed, not just because of Henry's edict but her connections with the French king and court in her youth. She is remembered over 500 years later for her life and death and also being the mother of Elizabeth I. She continues to fascinate even to this day. I received this free copy for an honest review from Netgalley.

This non-fiction account starts with Anne’s time as a lady-in-waiting at the French court. There, she was exposed to great thinkers, new ideas, and the politics of surviving the cutthroat atmosphere at court.

We follow Anne back to England, where she catches the eye of Henry VIII, and begins one of the most famous love affairs of all time.

Most of the book centers around King Henry’s “great matter,” his desire to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne. The author does a good job of describing the political and religious ramifications of England’s split with Rome.

However, for much of the book, Anne is in the background. Henry VIII, King Francis I of France, and their various ambassadors and envoys play a larger role in the book than Anne. I felt like we never really got to know her.

I understand that there are few (if any) surviving letters from Anne, and almost all of the information we have about her comes from the men in her life. Still, it was disappointing to find her a supporting character in a book that bears her name.

Thanks to @netgalley and @hatchettebooks for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Check out this book if you’re interested in the political machinations behind Henry VIII’s desire for a male heir, with Anne Boleyn as collateral damage.

Thorns, Lust and Glory fills in the gaps left by many books written about Anne Boleyn as it concentrates on the machinations of the Courts and diplomats, both of which were responsible for Anne's formation and downfall. Through this lens, the focus is removed from Anne herself, and widened so that the reader can better understand what was going on behind the scenes in an attempt to manipulate the relationship between Henry VIII and Charles V, I found this book to be extensively researched and appreciated its focus.

I enjoyed reading about Anne's life in the French court, as I feel like most resources I've come into contact with about Anne Boleyn have been started with her joining the English court. And while the dealings of the French court certainly impacted Anne's life and the world around her, I personally would have preferred a closer look at Anne's personal life at the time and a more zoomed-out look at the inner workings of French politics at the time because at times it felt like Anne herself was in the backdrop. That said, the writing itself was very engaging and I would certainly recommend this for anyone fascinated by Tudor history and western Europe history.

In Thorns, Lust, and Glory, Estelle Paranque's narrative spends a great deal of time discussing the French court in detail and sheds no new insights on the life of Anne Boleyn. King Francis and his political maneuverings with Henry VIII and other world leaders is interesting, but it overwhelmed this book. Where Anne's life intersected with Francis' the information was helpful, but I would have preferred the narrative to stay closer to Anne's story.

I had high hopes for Estelle Paranque's Thorns, Lust, and Glory. I have always wanted to read a book which could shed more light on Anne Boleyn which balances the popular portrait of her while not lionizing her image either. Paranque's book is focused on how Boleyn was betrayed by France while being accessible to general audiences. Unfortunately, I think these aims caused massive problems with the overall narrative.

In Paranque's attempt to make this more exciting for general audiences, she makes three bad choices. First, Paranque states she "recreates" dialogue. Also, the recreated dialogue is not tagged in a way for the reader to know as far as I can tell. I don't know why authors write history instead of historical fiction when they feel the need to create scenes and dialogue. Yes, a historian like Paranque may know the material well enough to guess quite well what people may have said. The simple fact, though, is that we don't know and creating something makes it fiction. This is no longer non-fiction.

The second problem is massive amounts of supposition. To be clear, this is not entirely the author's fault as much of Boleyn's writings were destroyed. However, I started highlighting the sections where the author uses phrases like, "there is no doubt that," or "but surely she must have felt." In a history book, these types of leaps need to be grounded in sound research and common sense. These examples of supposition often did not have a corresponding reference. Yes, it is completely reasonable to assume anyone who saw the Field of Cloth and Gold would be awed because we have enough evidence to make that short leap. It would not, for instance, be safe to assume that because Boleyn filtered information to her father about an ailing queen that she cared about the health of said queen.

The final problem is the framing narrative. Paranque wants to prove, in essence, that Boleyn was betrayed by France due to politics. This is a strange stance to take since in reference to the betrayal of Cardinal Wolsey in this book, Paranque herself writes that there are "no friends in politics." If so, Boleyn wasn't betrayed, it was just politics. Also, in trying to prove this thesis, Boleyn is totally sidelined and robbed of agency in the narrative. Having to explain all the politics of the age means Boleyn herself takes up very little page count in the overall narrative. The space she has is mostly taken up by Paranque projecting onto Boleyn. Boleyn is not given the spotlight needed for the reader to feel for her in her fall from grace.

(Tangent: We do not give Henry VIII credit enough for being the absolute worst. Please look out for my book, Henry VIII: He Sucked So Much and We Need to Talk About it More. Please note I just made that up and I will never write a book because it's really hard.)

As I just said, writing a book is hard with numerous pitfalls. I think Paranque started this with a sincere attempt to re-frame Anne Boleyn's life, but the very thesis required too many diversions and filling in of a lot of blanks. I think if Paranque turned this into historical fiction, she could have produced something much more solid.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Hachette Books.)