TAYSHAS 2019 #7

Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All by Various Authors

It is no secret that I love all things Tudor. I was so excited to see this on the nominee list several months ago, and even moreso to see that it made the cut for the actual list. I would've read this anyway, but to read something I enjoy AND it be a TAYSHAS book was too good to be true.

This was well done. Each wife's story starts right before her death, and there's a 50-ish page story telling what happens up until that point. Between each wife's story there is an account from Henry VIII. Each person's story was written by a different young adult author, though I have only heard of one of them.

You can tell that this was well researched. Most of what was presented is the same is what I have read in nonfiction books about the wives of Henry VIII, but it was told in more palatable ways. Even after reading this, I maintain that Jane Seymour is my least favorite wife. I hate that it has been purported that she was Henry's favorite simply because she is the one who gave him a son who lived. I still believe Anne Boleyn was the woman he loved. He may have said she was a witch who enchanted him, but I think that is what he had to tell himself to live with what he had done to her. He moved Heaven and Earth for her in a way that he didn't for any of his other wives.

All in all, this was a good read.