Reviews

Anna of Kleve: Queen of Secrets by Alison Weir

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ada33's review against another edition

informative tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I read this book in my teens and 15 years later I've just reread it. Poorly written as it just reads as a plodding description of one thing after another. I enjoy the history and the story itself though. Weir's writing is not as good as I remember but this book is worth reading if you like historical based fiction.

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rogue_runner's review against another edition

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slow-paced

3.0

Pretty slow, probably a bit more interesting than the previous books... for the injection of quite a lot of fiction to the tale. I'll finish these, but I think more out of spite/desire to learn the tiniest modicum of history more than anything else.

katrione's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

kindledspiritsbooks's review against another edition

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4.0

When I find myself in times of trouble, my boyfriend comes to me, speaking words of wisdom: ‘Why don’t you read one of your nice books about the Tudors, that usually makes you feel better?’. He is right, he is always right. Alison Weir is continuing to do a brilliant job with her Six Tudor Queens series, in which one book is dedicated to telling the story of each of the six wives of Henry VIII. This one centred around Anna of Kleve, Henry VIII’s fourth wife who he famously divorced for allegedly being much uglier than her portrait had suggested. I hadn’t read a book that entirely centred on Anna before and I really enjoyed getting to read about her life after Henry divorced her. My only issue was that Weir seems to have taken a number of liberties with the facts and much of the drama in the earlier and latter portions of the book was derived from events that most historians would dispute. However, I appreciate that it’s difficult to write a compelling novel about a woman happily retiring to the countryside to live alone and mind her own business so I won’t judge Weir too harshly.

moonlunatik's review against another edition

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emotional funny informative medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

kittykornerlibrarian's review against another edition

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5.0

Accidentally selected Finished... review later.

Review MUCH later... I really remember liking this, especially the contrast between Anna's life in Germany and her life as Henry's Queen. I wish I remembered more of this, but I am going on with the series regardless.