I quite enjoyed this.
The storyline surrounded Elizabeth as a girl being molested by Seymour is unsettling. ( )

I won this ARC copy of this book last year, from a Goodreads contest. I have to say, it was a bit slow going for me in the beginning. After the first 80 pages it suddenly grew on me. Although I went into it already knowing the end, the writer managed to emotionally involve me in Katherine's story. This is a good peek at what it must have been like to be married to the elderly, irascible Henry VIII. ( )

I read Elizabeth Fremantle’s Girl in the Glass Tower two years ago and, ever since, I’ve meant to get round to her other Tudor novels. While Glass Tower focused on Arbella Stuart and Aemilia Lanyer, Queen’s Gambit is set considerably earlier, at the very end of Henry VIII’s reign. Obese, unpredictable and narcissistic, the king rules over a nervous court employed in the unpredictable task of catering to his favour. He has just executed his fifth wife, the giddy and silly Catherine Howard, and the great families of the realm are hopefully pressing their nubile daughters under his nose. But Henry has had enough of young women. His eyes have turned to maturity and good sense: the twice-widowed Katherine Lanyer, born Katherine Parr. Katherine is bright, gentle and wise: wise enough to want nothing less than to become queen. But, when the King calls, he must be answered; and soon Katherine finds herself at the heart of the Tudor web, ministering to a man whose precarious favour can disappear in a flash. Thoughtful and well-crafted, this novel brings the claustrophobia of the late Henrician court to life...

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2019/01/13/queens-gambit-elizabeth-fremantle/ ( )

A well-written, interesting re-imagining of the life & times of Catherine Parr, wife #6 to Henry VIII. I particularly enjoyed the character & storyline of the maid, Dot, who is used to give a different, though sympathetic, p.o.v. from Catherine's own. ( )

This is the story of Henry VIII's sixth and last wife, Katherine Parr, who luckily manages to outlive him, because she otherwise would probably not have met a good end. The book does not go into extreme amounts of detail about the machinations of Henry's court and the struggles for power as do some other books about this period, but you get the gist of what is going on. One thing I particularly liked about this story was that Katherine's tale was carried all the way through to the end of her life and didn't stop at her husband's demise - thus, it covers her rapid marriage to Thomas Seymour, her long-awaited pregnancy, the scandal of her husband dallying with a 14-year-old Elizabeth Tudor, and her death shortly after giving birth to her daughter. If you like historical fiction, you should enjoy this book. ( )