The Queen’s Sorrow
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3.8 • 4 Ratings
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
A queen brought low by love compromised and power abused – the tragedy of Mary Tudor.
These are desperate times for Mary Tudor. As England’s first ruling queen, her joy should be complete when she marries Philip, the dashing Prince of Spain. But despite her ardent devotion, he’s making it painfully obvious that he cares little for his new wife – and her struggle to produce an heir only makes him colder towards him. Lonely and depressed, Mary begins to vent her anguish on her people – and England becomes a place of cruelty, persecution and fear.
Mary’s terrible fall from grace is seen through the eyes of Rafael, a Spanish sundial maker who is part of the Prince’s flamboyant entourage. He becomes the one person that she trusts, but his life – and new-found love – will be caught in the chaos that follows…
Reviews
Praise for ‘The Sixth Wife’:
‘My, what a story…delightfully vulgar and utterly compelling.’ The Times
‘Suzannah Dunn…weaves…a love story that is both moving and believable…of second chances at love, and passion reawakened.’ Telegraph
‘Mesmerising and beautifully written.’ Scotsman
‘Suzannah Dunn…weaves a kind of love story that is both moving and believable. This is the Tudor world as seldom seen…The result is historical chick lit at its most charming.’ Telegraph
‘Dunn [sheds] possible new light on Katharine’s marriage to Thomas Seymour and her final days are treated with sympathy and skill.’ The Tablet
About the author
Suzannah Dunn is the author of nine previous books of fiction: 'Darker Days Than Usual’, 'Blood Sugar', 'Past Caring', ‘Venus Flaring', 'Quite Contrary', 'Tenterhooks', 'Commencing Our Descent', 'Queen of Subtleties' and ‘The Sixth Wife’. Her most recent novel is ‘The Confession of Katherine Howard’. She lives in Shropshire.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dunn fails to deliver in her newest melodrama, a meandering historical that chronicles the expedition of Rafael, a Spanish retainer sent on what he is told will be a brief trip to construct a sundial for Mary Tudor. But once he arrives in xenophobic and unstable England, Rafael does little but whine about the weather and how much he misses his wife and son. Unfortunately for Rafael, his project is delayed, and while waiting to return home, he becomes infatuated with Cecily, a tender housekeeper who becomes his constant companion despite their language barrier. They fall in love (albeit excruciatingly slowly), but their affair is complicated by Rafael's conflicting feelings for his wife. Mary, meanwhile, plays a very secondary role until a late-book shift in which she becomes a paramount force in the narrative as it tumbles toward a surprising conclusion. Although Dunn nails Rafael's fascination with sex, and her eye for detail remains sharp, much of the prose feels stilted, and the interminably slow plot is hobbled by a wallowing narrator and facile treatments of isolation, religious tension and icy domestic life.
Customer Reviews
I must of read the wrong book
Not only was this incredibly boring, it was nothing like the commentary for it. I bought it because it was about Mary although she was mentioned, it was only half a dozen times throughout the book - if that. I didn't wish to buy a book about a Spanish sundial maker and his affair with an english housekeeper/seamstress who were not even in the queens household. To me this was a complete waste of money it says in the snippet it's about Mary, her marriage, her struggle for a baby, etc it clearly isn't unless iTunes downloaded me the wrong book with the right cover.