The Concubine

Acclaimed historical novelist Norah Lofts brings Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII’s Tudor court to vivid life in this classic novel of danger, romance, ambition, and intrigue that forever altered the course of English history.

The king first noticed Anne Boleyn as a heartbroken sixteen-year-old, sullen and beautiful after a thwarted romance with the son of the Earl of Northumberland. “All eyes and hair,” a courtier had said disparagingly of her, but when King Henry VIII fell for young Anne, nothing could keep him from what he desired. Against common sense and the urgings of his most trusted advisors, Henry defied all, blindly following his passion for Anne and using the power he held over the bodies and souls of all who resided in his realm and beyond.

Anne’s ascent through the Tudor court elevates her from lady-in-waiting to queen, but her life spirals out of control when Henry is driven to desperate acts of betrayal and violence. The consequences of Anne’s rise to power and eventual demise reach far beyond the inner circle of the court. Loyalties to church, queen, and country are tested, and—in the wake of the king’s volatile passions—can become an unpredictable matter of life and death.

First published in 1963 and adored by readers for generations, Lofts’s lush and moving portrayal of the ambitious and doomed Anne Boleyn remains a classic work of Tudor historical fiction, vividly bringing one of the most dramatic chapters in 16th-century English history to life.