The Boleyn Inheritance

A trio of narrators views Henry VIII's mid-life, measuring the results of Ann Boleyn's recklessness. Davina Porter employs tight, bitter tones for her recounting of dissatisfied courtier Jane Boleyn, 30-year-old widow of the beheaded brother of Ann. Bianca Amato is Queen Anne of Cleves, Henry's newest wife. Her controlled, steady voice reflects her stringent upbringing and the tension of facing a foreign court without knowledge of language or culture. There is a tone of mournful loneliness as she fears rejection, inquiry, and death, and a strength after she's sent from court and recognizes "the spark that is uniquely me." Charlotte Parry 's Katherine Howard is a lilting, bubbly animation of a silly teenager who lives only for gowns, dancing, and flirting and who dies with a high-strung hysteria. S.W. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Starred review from August 7, 2006
Returning to the scene of The Other Boleyn Girl
, historical powerhouse Gregory again brings the women of Henry VIII's court vividly to life. Among the cast, who alternately narrate: Henry's fourth wife, Bavarian-born Anne of Cleves; his fifth wife, English teenager Katherine Howard; and Lady Rochford (Jane Boleyn), the jealous spouse whose testimony helped send her husband, Thomas, and sister-in-law Anne Boleyn to their execution. Attended by Lady Rochford, 24-year-old Anne of Cleves endures a disastrous first encounter with the twice-her-age king—an occasion where Henry takes notice of Katherine Howard. Gregory beautifully explains Anne of Cleves's decision to stay in England after her divorce, and offers contemporary descriptions of Lady Rochford's madness. While Gregory renders Lady Rochford with great emotion, and Anne of Cleves with sympathy, her most captivating portrayal is Katherine, the clever yet naïve 16th-century adolescent counting her gowns and trinkets. Male characters are not nearly as endearing. Gregory's accounts of events are accurate enough to be persuasive, her characterizations modern enough to be convincing. Rich in intrigue and irony, this is a tale where readers will already know who was divorced, beheaded or survived, but will savor Gregory's sharp staging of how and why.