Ashley Marie 's Reviews > The Boleyn Inheritance

I must confess, I was putting off reading this for ages and ages because having three main characters each with different viewpoints felt extremely intimidating and sounded very confusing. Ha! I needn't have worried. Each of these ladies' lives is so intertwined with each other that it makes for a REALLY easy read. Add the fact that the audiobook is abridged (elsewise I would NOT have finished this in a day, still trying to wrap my head around that one anyway), and this is an absolute breeze of a novel. Not so much for our leading ladies, but you get the idea.

This book picks up with Henry's fourth soon-to-be wife, Anne of Cleves, and takes us through his fourth and fifth marriages. I'm still a bit bummed Ms Gregory opted not to grace us with a novel that at least had Catherine Parr somewhat involved, but I suppose by then all the drama llamas that followed Henry VIII around had died off.

Sorry, that was bad. Like, really bad. Anyway...

After Katherine of Aragon, whom I ADORED reading about in The Constant Princess, I have to say Anne of Cleves is my next favorite of Henry's unfortunate wives. I do like Anne Boleyn, but she's the one with all the publicity, everyone knows her. And I feel like after reading the first three books in this series, binge-watching The Tudors on Netflix is required. And I always seem to mix the Tudors cast with the Other Boleyn Girl cast-- I like ScarJo for Mary Boleyn, but Natalie Dormer will ALWAYS be Anne and I like Jim Sturgess for George. And Jonathan for Henry, because yum. And Tamzin Merchant is perfect for Katherine Howard. I can feel myself digressing.

As I said, I like Anne of Cleves and I really feel bad for her because, like Katherine of Aragon, she never did anything to warrant what she got. Granted, it could've been a hell of a lot worse *side-eyes Anne B and Katherine H* but still, this poor girl. She gets dragged out of her home country into a place where she doesn't speak the language nearly at all, gets laughed at and treated with suspicion because of that, and is still excited to meet and marry her new husband. And then as soon as Henry meets her he decides he doesn't like her. What an ass. And throughout all of this, and then dumping her so he can marry a teenager (rape culture much?), Anne is never really angry or very jaded by the whole thing-- just bewildered as all get out. I just want to give her a hug.

The "Boleyn Inheritance" seems to be a whole lot of nothing, by the end of this book. Although, I suppose Anne of Cleves would beg to differ, seeing as she wound up with a nice house out of the whole deal. Other than that, both Katherine and Jane Rochford-Boleyn died, for gods' sake. Katherine I did feel a bit sorry for, because she's only a child really. She likes pretty things and would likely be far better off if this whole thing were make-believe and she could marry a handsome prince and go on like that; by the time she and Henry get together he's old enough to be her father and his leg is NASTY and (as evidenced with Anne of Cleves) he can't get it up anymore. Pity Viagra didn't exist.

Jane, on the other hand, is a real piece of work. Throughout my learning about her, she just comes across as a snake. In OBG, we hear George moaning about being married to her, which gives the impression that she's not a nice person, and then she stabs both him and Anne in the back, so it's not a good outlook for her at all through the eyes of the reader. But then come this book and she's all BOOHOO I LOST MY HUSBAND, HIS AND ANNE'S GHOSTS HAUNT ME, WAHHHH. Fuck off, bitch. She tries to paint herself all like she really did love him, and I just don't buy it. I don't know how things actually were, back in the 1500s, but I really don't buy it. I was SO glad to hear she died, because it's everything she deserved. Now if only Uncle Norfolk could have gone the same way...

Oh and a word about the audio-- great choice. I've loved Ruthie Henshall since she starred in Les Miserables back in the 1990s, and she plays Katherine Howard to the hilt. Very well done. Bianca Amato and Dagmara Dominczyk were also fantastic as Jane Boleyn and Anne of Cleves, respectively -- each of their voices helped keep me in touch with the story, I'll have to remember them when I reread this.