Customer Reviews
Disappointing and trivial - By: J. Kibble, 15 Oct 2008 
Deeply disappointing read to anyone genuinely interestedin history & definately not one of Alison Weir's more successful works. here ius no depth to the book & the characters are shallow; there is some basisin historical fact but much of the book is conjecture. The style is stilted & uses the device of several different people taking up the tale to carry the story along. This patently does not workin this book as none of the characters develop a believable or sufficiently diiferentiated voice. The modernisation of the language & sentiment makes the book anachronistic & is rather patronising to the reader. It was so vacuous & trite that I nearly gave up on the bookin boredom but the second half does gain some pace as it moves to it's inescapable conclusion & there are some little insights into Queen Mary's character that could bear further development.
Is this book trying to be reportage or a boddice ripper ? Whatever the genre it really does not work. Perhaps I should not have read it after Ives' excellent piece of scholarship on Anne Boleyn which really is well researched, highly entertaining & rewarding.
Sadly disappointed - By: the book was better, 30 Sep 2008 History is my favorite subject & this author came highly recommended.
This is the first book I have read by her & was extremely disappointed.
It lacked a true atmosphere of the time,that this was set in.
I really could not picture any exacutioner, living during Mary's reign, thinking the thoughts that this author had written.
The terminology was all wrong, the dialogue sounded 1970's.
The characters all appeared wishy washy.
It is far more a type of Barbara Cartland for the history lover, than any serious attempt to understand or explain how these events really played out.
It is an easy light read, ideal for train travel or just before going to sleep.
The Tudor/War of the Roses have been far better written as stories by Rosemay Hawley Jarman, amoungest others, who REALLY make you smell the candle wax & hear the rustle of cloth of gold.
This book is not,in my opinion, true history at all. Just another story book.
Suspenseful even with a well-known ending - By: Graceann Macleod, 11 Aug 2008 
Alison Weir is a respected historian who is often recommended as an antidote to inaccurate representationsin historical fiction as written by other authors. This is her first novel, & what a novel it is. I was entranced from the first line, & even though I knew how it was going to end, I still hoped that there would be a change at some point near the end. That's the sign of a good writer - someone who can write so compellingly & with such suspense that you hope they can even change historical facts for you.
Lady Jane Grey was a pawnin the ambition of her parents & of the Duke of Northumberland, almost from the moment she was born. Never forgiven for the cardinal sin of being born female, she was beaten & tortured into becoming a "lady" suitable for marriage to a monarch. When that ceased to be an option she was beaten into a marriage & a reign she never wanted, protesting even as the crown was being put on her head. These are facts that are known by most who have even read cursory information about this young lady. What is amazing is the way Alison Weir makes it seem like new information. The chorus of different voicesin the telling of Jane's tale is exemplary & clever. I kept turning pages wanting to see what spin the next narrator would put on the story.
This novel did what historical fiction should do - it made me want to seek out the non-fiction bases for the story & do more reading. Anything that inspires further study can only be praised.
An Excellent Book into a Intresting Woman - By: Gem - the bookworm, 23 Jun 2008 Having known very little about the main character this book is based on, Lady Jane Grey, it was a refreshing & intresting read. I've been a fan of Philippa Gregory's book's but this surpasses them by leaps & bounds.
The characters are very much three dimension each with flaws. A previous reviewer had made the comment that Jane was too perfect, which I didn't find. To me she was flawedin the fact that she was too dogmaticin her views on religion, but thisin itself was, at least to me, a form of rebelion against her parents. It was their disappointmentin Jane & their ambition for power that ultimately led to her downfall.
The author has obviously done her homework & research & by intertwining known facts with certain key pointsin history that Jane 'Could' have witnessed, it brings it live.
I also began to fell for Queen Mary I, who even though knew thatin order to give the country security of her marriage to Philip of Spain, & therefor give a heir to the throne, Jane had to die, Mary gave Jane many chances to live. First by trying to get her to convert & then to see if she was with child.
By the time that Jane's execution was drawing close, I found I could no longer read this book at bed time. I found myself getting very emotional at the scene.
Allin all, an excellent book & I can't wait for the next one, which is sittingin my to-read pile.
good but nothing special - By: R. L. Araujo, 11 Jun 2008 
Ok so I really liked the whole concept of this story, as soon as I got the book I thought it was some thing special. I enjoyed the layout of being able to see the events taking place from various perspectives. But I feel the book & the protagonist is weak. I felt that at points Jane was too perfect & that it seemed like Alison weir had forgotten she was just a girl of 16 who would have had other hopes beyond religion & studies although I have not researched Jane so I would not know but I simply could not see her as a human. I did however enjoy her mother who seemed like a much more interesting & well developed character. I also disliked Jane's "wedding night" I felt the whole scene was unnecessary & very depressing, at points it became unbearable to read which really put me off finishing the rest of the book. I feel the problem with this book is that Jane lacked faults, she did not seem to me to be a real person who did actually live, she seemed more like a saint & I felt I simply could not relate to this character. I also felt some chapters were rather boring & I found myself skipping a few pages.
