Well done historical romance in Harper's The Last Boleyn
Written: Mar 25 '06 (Updated Apr 08 '06)
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Pros: One of the better historical romances that appeared in the early 1980's.
Cons: Some typos and a few historical slips along the way.
The Bottom Line: This is one of those oldie but goodie romances that was published back in the heyday of the bodice ripper. Fun, but also stays within the bounds of history.
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| telynor's Full Review: Karen Harper - The Last Boleyn |
History has continued to be a very fertile field for novelists. After all, the characters and most of the actions are already there, ready to be molded and tweaked into shape by the author, and if it's done well enough, then the few liberties that are taken sometimes can be forgiven. But if an author plays a bit too far with what happens in history -- or rather as we can percieve history to be -- then the story is turned into a laughable mess.
One of the few authors that I've read who has taken on Tudor England, and make it work, has been Karen Harper. Her first novel, Passion's Reign, has been reissued in large trade paperback format and retitled The Last Boleyn.
The novel opens with an eight-year-old Mary Bullen overhearing her parents discussing her future. Unlike her elder brother, George, and her younger sister, Anne, Mary has inherited the fabulous looks of her mother's highborn family, the Howards. She is blonde, blue eyed and very pretty, just the sort of beauty that is coveted. Her father, a fast rising courtier in Henry VIII's court, has been named as an ambassador to the Netherlands, and he intends to bring Mary with him to acquire social graces and an education, while her mother is heartbroken to be losing her elder daughter. Little does Mary realize what this new twist in her life is going to bring to her.
We follow Mary's life from an innocent child, to when she is made a part of the court of Henry VIII's sister Mary Tudor, as she briefly married to the French King. Mary is at first enchanted with the French court, sophisticated and gay, but as she grows up, we also see her falling under the spell of the new king, Francois I, with his seductive, wiley ways. Mary all too quickly finds herself a pawn in the polictical and sexual games, and gains a hard education in the realities of royalty. Even when her younger sister Anne joins her in France, it isn't enough to help allieve the distrust that Mary has learned to face the world with.
When she returns to England as a teenager, she also moves into the circle around Henry VIII, and meets the two men that will change her life. Will Carey, a courtier from an old but faded family, is the one that she marries, but he's cold and distant to her, more interested in possessing her than loving her, and regaining his ancestral estates. And then there is Will Stafford -- Staff, as he is refered to in the novel -- a charming, cynical courtier who always seems to be there when Mary needs a steady shoulder. But will her broken heart, crushed by two kings and an indifferent husband, be able to accept this man?
It's an interesting story, made all the more enjoyable by the fact that it all really happened, from the questions about Mary's son by Will Carey to her second marriage. Anne Bullen -- the name has several variations -- is here a woman caught up in a dangerous game, and instead of being a shrewish b!tch, is instead a nervous, high-strung woman whose inability to moderate herself is what brings her down in the end. Henry VIII is also seen in a more favorable light, as a king who views the world as something to manipulate, and determined to have exactly what he wants. While the novel is very much a product of the early eighties style of romance novel, where men are a bit more brutal than what we would accept now, and women just as tough as the men, it's still a decent read after nearly twenty five years. Few novels have that sort of legs to stand on.
Inevitably, there are going to be comparisons with Philippa Gregory's novel, The Other Boleyn Girl, which is also told from the point of view of Mary Boleyn. But unlike Gregory's novel, Harper stays firmly within in the known facts of Mary Boleyn's life. Yes, Mary has had little attention from historians in favour of her more famous sister, but in the end, this novel shows her in a very human, far wiser role than usual. Mary knew when to cut her losses, unlike Anne, and have been far more realistic in her attitudes, and grows up considerably in maturity and wisdom as the book progresses. In a curious twist, Gregory has a future novel that is to be released also called The Last Boleyn, that looks at Jane Rochford, the unfortunate and rather sad wife of George Boleyn, sometime in the future.
Ms. Harper now writes historical mysteries, focused around Queen Elizabeth I as a slueth, but this first novel has been one of my favorites over the years, and I'm glad to see it come back into print. Several extra features have been added to the original text, including a new afterword by the author, and a reader's guide that has some fairly good questions for those that want to delve deeper into the nuances of the story. Recommended.
The Last Boleyn
Karen Harper
1982, 2006; Three Rivers Press
ISBN 0-307-23790-7
Recommended:
Yes
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