In England in 1542, Henry the VIII was king. He’d just
executed his fifth wife, Catherine Howard. As self-proclaimed head of the
Church of England, formed when he denounced the power of the Pope to say he
couldn’t divorce his first wife, he had seized the assets of the Catholic
churches and dissolved the monasteries and convents. While he made provisions
for the care of the displaced monks and nuns, they remained under his
authority. Catherine Haven, this books protagonist, found herself married and
widowed by 1542 (this is the third book in a series- I need to find those, so I
can find out how she got around the proscription against former nuns marrying),
and is now serving in Anne of Cleves’s household; she is also pregnant by
Benjamin Davies. Given Henry’s state of mind- of distrust of women in general-
this could be disastrous. They cannot wed without Henry’s permission, and he is
very apt not to give it. Catherine finds herself waiting for Benjamin, trying
to hide her growing belly and wondering if they will manage to marry or if
she’ll be punished for having sex, while taking care of Anne of Cleves’s
household.
The past comes alive in this book. The minute details of
everyday life are illuminated. The sights, sounds, and, yes, smells (not good)
of living in those days are described vividly. The endless labor that was done
if a person was not royal. The subservient position of women- Catherine’s
barely teen son finds it his place to tell her mother how to behave. The fact
that people’s lives depended on the king’s whim. This realism, and the tension,
is the heart of the novel; the plot itself is fairly simple. Wait, then ride
horses for days on end, hoping to outrun the King’s agents. It’s a good book,
but it has the feel of a sort of ‘bridge’ from the second to the next one.
This book will not be released until September 29, 2015. It is not up on Amazon yet for preorder.
