A Dangerous Inheritance

October 1, 2012
A curiously structured historical whodunit by Tudor doyenne Weir (Henry VIII, 2001, etc.). There's a certain kind of historical obsessive, found mostly in Britain laboring alongside the Earl of Oxford vs. Shakespeare set, who argues that Richard III had nothing but love for the tykes known as the "boy princes" whom he shut away in the Tower of London, the Abu Ghraib of the late Middle Ages, from whom nary a peep would emerge again. A person of such a bent might wax wroth, to be sure, on reading Weir's imaginative view of events. Other readers will wonder at her narrative strategy, bracketed by the points of view of two women separated by a century: Lady Jane Grey's sister Katherine on one hand, and Kate Plantagenet on the other. Both young women, scarcely teenagers when thrust into the limelight, are bound up in the intrigues so beloved of royals and nobles back in the day; both wind up doing time in the pokey, where they have ample leisure to ponder the fates of the young boys. Weir's tendency to didacticism sometimes slows what is already a complex tale, and the proceedings can be a little talky; just so, the interweaving of the tales of the two Kates doesn't always quite work. Still, no one alive knows as much about the Tudors as Weir; her historical facts and speculations alike are watertight, and any reader of Hilary Mantel's excellent Tudor evocations will want to explore this book as well. Weir's language is often as glorious as the tongue back in those endlessly inventive days: "Through the enticement of your whoredom, you sought to entrap me with some poisoned bait under the color of sugared friendship." Zounds! Did Richard III do in or merely discourage--" 'suppressed, ' mark you, not murdered"--his youngster kin? Read on.

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Starred review from September 15, 2012

Weir's fourth work of historical fiction (after Captive Queen) will leave readers craving more. This fantastic novel revolves around the dark role played by the Tower of London in the lives of four royal prisoners: Katherine Haute (bastard daughter of Richard, Duke of Gloucester), Lady Katherine Grey (sister to the nine-day Queen Jane), and the boy princes Edward and Richard. Weir follows the two "Kates" from their momentous beginnings, the former when her father becomes king and the latter when her sister is crowned queen, to their inglorious ends after the social fall and demise of their families. Tying the two stories together is the women's desire to know what truly happened to the "princes in the tower," imprisoned there by their uncle, Richard III. VERDICT With its evident in-depth research and creative twists, this tale of two women trying to make sense of the power of the English crown, particularly as it relates to their own fate, is nothing short of riveting. [Academic and library marketing--Ed.]--Audrey M. Jones, Arlington, VA

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2012
Weir, a popular English writer with a well-known fondness for the Tudor monarchs, stands with equally secure footing in history and fiction. Her latest book finds her on familiar historical terrain, this time in a fictional journey creatively connecting two time periods by drawing a parallel between two historical personages sharing similar names. Alternating sections, each one only a few pages in length, take readers on an initially dizzying series of abrupt jerks back and forth from Lady Katherine Grey, heiress presumptive to Queen Elizabeth I (a position that, of course, leads to Katherine's discomfort, as the queen is ragingly jealous of anyone who might take the limelight from her), to Kate Plantagenet, illegitimate daughter of King Richard III, whose defeat and death at Bosworth Field brought the Tudors to the English throne in the first place. But as readers grow accustomed to the settings and characters that distinguish the two periods, the transitions back and forth smooth out into an ultimately easily flowing narrative. The primary connective thread is that both women, while onlookers in the deadly game of usurping the throne, spent time in the Tower of London, for no other reason than the threat posed by their royal birth. A novel compelling in its complexity. High-Demand Backstory: Marketing to libraries is only one of the publicity initiatives the publisher has planned for the latest work by this perenially best-selling author.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)