Mary Boleyn is a young noblewoman who arrives newly married at the court of Henry the IV and his wife Katherine of Aragon. The tale moves through Mary's eyes, through her own affair with Henry, the birth of her children, and then her viewpoint, as both the ousted lover of Henry, and the sister of Anne Boleyn as the affair that shook the country unfolds.
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The review of this Book prepared by Kathleen Mckenna
This is a story told from the point of view from the rarely heard from Mary Boleyn, sister of the infamous Anne Boleyn, the second wife to King Henry the VIII, who was beheaded. In this story we learn about how Mary is chosen as the King's mistress, and then is made to marry William Carey, who is cuckholded, while the king keeps his wife as his mistress, and impregnates her twice, and forces Carey to acknowledge the king' bastards with Mary as his own.
The King eventually tires of Mary and starts to pursue her sister Anne, who manages to keep him at arm's length for six years through the tumultous times of his divorce from Katharine of Aragon. During this period Anne is presented as an evil woman who is coy and vain, who flirts with every attractive man in the court. Even her brother, George shares an almost incestous closeness.
Mary spends time in obscurity and suffers from poverty after her husband William Carey dies of the plaugue. But she eventually finds new love and a step father for her two children, and ends up living away from court and in the country which brings her happiness.
The review of this Book prepared by Joelle Imus