Tag Archives: Tudor novels

#BookReview ‘The Fourth Queen’ by Nicola Cornick @NicolaCornick #historical #timeslip #Tudor

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The Fourth Queen by Nicola Cornick is my favourite book of the year. An intriguing timeslip novel split between the present day and Tudor England, the queen of the title is Anna of Cleves, the fourth wife of Henry VIII. Two women, Jenna now and Marris in in the 16th century, are bound by this one queen and one secret. To Jenna’s horror, that secret may be uncovered by a 21st century archaelogical dig. Nicola CornickEngland 1539. Three sisters. Loyalty. Betrayal. Secrets. Danger. Dissolution. After the death of Jane Seymour, King Henry VIII must marry again and a match is sought with the German princess Anna of Cleves. Marris, Bridget and Rose, the only remaining nuns at Winterhill Priory, are about to be evicted from the priory that has been their home since they were orphaned. Marris knows it is her responsibility to keep her sisters safe and so accepts an offer of marriage from the new owner of their old home. Due for demolition, the site will be rebuilt using stone from the priory by Sir William Sharington. It is to be his home, Winterhill Hall.
England, present day. Three sisters. Loyalty. Lies. Secrets. Rivalry. Jealousy. Jenna feels responsible for her two younger sisters, Bree and Molly, despite their independence. The two strands, modern and historical, are knitted together by retrocognition; the knowledge of a historical event which could not have been learned or inferred by normal means. Why does Jenna have such deep knowledge of Marris’s life? She thinks, ‘The past was such a tangled web and none of it could be allowed to come out, because once one part of it started to unravel, everything would fall apart.’ An encounter with financier Owen Power forces her to reconsider everything she thinks she knows and wants, every red line she has drawn about the past.
The Fourth Queen is by far the best timeslip novel I’ve read. Impossible to review without giving away some great twists. Bravo.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Nicola Cornick:-
THE FORGOTTEN SISTER
THE LAST DAUGHTER
THE OTHER GWYN GIRL
THE SECRETS OF THE ROSE
THE WINTER GARDEN

If you like this, try:-
‘The Queen’s Painter’ by Wendy Holden
‘Shadows in the Ashes’ by Christina Courtenay
‘The Story Spinner’ by Barbara Erskine

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview THE FOURTH QUEEN by Nicola Cornick @NicolaCornick https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-9XY via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Frances Brody

#BookReview ‘Prophecy’ by SJ Parris @thestephmerritt #historical #crime

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Prophecy is the second instalment of the Giordano Bruno books by SJ Parris, based on the real-life Italian philosopher. Parris has taken some of the known facts about the real Bruno and enhanced rumour into fact, making him a spy for Queen Elizabeth I’s spymaker and Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham. SJ Parris The result is a delicious mix of proven historical fact, betrayals, plots and assignations with a healthy dose of invention and a charismatic character to root for. The real Bruno was also a cosmologist, proclaiming that the universe was infinite and that the stars in the sky were suns, like ours, circled by their own planets, and this theme runs throughout the books. To our modern eyes, Bruno appears a scientist; in his time, he was deemed a heretic. In Prophecy, Bruno must play a dangerous game on behalf of Walsingham, living in the house of the French ambassador and party to a plot to put Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne. Always an outsider – Bruno is a religious exile, a renegade monk who escaped his Italian friary in search of sanctuary from the Inquisition – and has learned to be an observer amongst dangerous factions in order to survive. He has also learned to defend himself with his fists.
Queen Elizabeth makes herself vulnerable to influence through her burgeoning interest in prophecies and astrology. When a maid in the queen’s household is found dead, her body branded with astrological signs, fear stalks the streets. Pamphlets about with fantasy and rumour are sold freely. Bruno is charged by Walsingham to identify the murderer. The pace of the story ramps up when Bruno makes a connection with the men plotting in support of the Scottish Queen. As the various parties dance elegantly around each other, stepping into shadows and dissembling in full light, Bruno must unravel true friends from false.
Second in the series, this book moved much quicker for me than the first, Heresy. Key characters are already established as is the historical context, political manipulation and religious conflict [intricate at the best of times]. There are plenty of traitorous suspects, dodgy meeting places, ill-advised assignations and dark alleyways to furnish twists and surprises a plenty.
Prophecy was a 4* read for me. My first love is CJ Sansom’s Matthew Shardlake series, but this runs it a close second.

Read my reviews of other books in this series:-
HERESY #1GIORDANOBRUNO
SACRILEGE #3GIORDANOBRUNO
TREACHERY #4GIORDANOBRUNO
CONSPIRACY #5GIORDANOBRUNO
EXECUTION #6GIORDANOBRUNO
ALCHEMY #7GIORDANOBRUNO

If you like this, try:-
‘Dangerous Women’ by Hope Adams
‘The Other Eden’ by Sarah Bryant
‘The Confessions of Frannie Langton’ by Sara Collins

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview PROPHECY by SJ Parris @thestephmerritt https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5ub via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Forgotten Sister’ by Nicola Cornick @NicolaCornick #historical #Tudor

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The Forgotten Sister by Nicola Cornick is a retelling of the Tudor love triangle of Queen Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley and Dudley’s wife Amy Robsart. The death of Amy has intrigued historians for centuries: did she fall downstairs, or was she pushed? Did her husband arrange her murder so he could marry the queen? Tudor history is mashed together with time travel and all kinds of mystical goings-on. Nicola CornickCornick has fun with her explanation of events, telling the story in dual timelines and mirroring Tudor characters with a contemporary circle of celebrities. At first, I found this irritating and was diverted from the story by trying to match up modern personalities with their Tudor equivalent. But when I stopped doing that, I sank into this easy-to-read story which I read over a weekend.
Lizzie Kingdom is a television personality with a clean-cut image. Her best friend is Dudley Lester, wild boy and former boy band member of Call Back Summer. When Dudley’s wife Amelia falls down the stairs to her death at their country house, Oakhanger Hall, Lizzie is suspected of having an affair with Dudley. Her ‘good girl’ image is in tatters and the press is hunting her. Lizzie’s story races along, she quickly discards her sycophantic group of followers and retreats to a country house she inherited but has rarely visited. And there we start to understand the mystical ability which Lizzie possesses connecting her with events in the past simply by touching an object – known as psychometry, or token object reading.
The romantic sub-plot sparks into life when Lizzie accidentally touches Arthur Robsart, the quiet rather stolid older brother of Amelia. Never before has her psychometric ability worked on a person. Arthur and his sister Anna suspect Lizzie of responsibility for the disappearance in odd circumstances of their younger brother Johnny. With the police seeking her again, this time for possible murder, Lizzie must choose whether to use the ability she has previously used only to remember her dead mother. To say more will give away the plot.
This was a fun read though populated with some unpleasant characters who were difficult to like. I was left wondering what the story would have been like if the viewpoints had been expanded to four. Cornick tells the story only via Amy Robsart and Lizzie Kingdom and shows us nothing of the events as experienced by Queen Elizabeth I [Lizzie’s equivalent] or Amelia Lester [Amy’s modern-day equivalent]. After Amelia’s death, Lizzie is crucified on social media, I was left wondering if Queen Elizabeth knew, or cared about, the gossip surrounding Dudley’s, and her own, guilt in Amy’s death.
A note on the cover, yet again another cover design which, though attractive, bears little connection with the story.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Nicola Cornick:-
THE FOURTH QUEEN
THE LAST DAUGHTER
THE OTHER GWYN GIRL
THE SECRETS OF THE ROSE
THE WINTER GARDEN

If you like this, try:-
‘Kings and Queens’ by Terry Tyler #1LANCHESTER
‘The Lady of the Rivers’ by Philippa Gregory
‘Cecily’ by Annie Garthwaite

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview THE FORGOTTEN SISTER by Nicola Cornick @NicolaCornick https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4JT via @SandraDanby