Just Released! The Tudor Throne, by Brandy Purdy

The Tudor Throne

Brandy Purdy

My regular readers know I have strict standards where first person narrative is concerned.  I believe it should only be used if the voice can reveal more than the usual narrative style can.  I have reviewed books that were at best lackluster and at worst clumsy because of inappropriate use of first person.  This book, like at least one other of Brandy's three, uses first person in a skillful, effective way.

After a narrative prologue depicting the death of the great King Henry VIII the novel splits into two voices, is daughters Mary's and Elizabeth's.  The tale starts with the three children, the girls and their brother the new king Edward VI at their father's deathbed.  From the very start the two distinctive voices not only are easy to identify, but also tell much the same story but with different minds analyzing events. 

We follow both girls through their brother's short reign, living with the young boy's imperial behavior and often fickle affections.  The sisters are still fond of each other at this point, but a scandal involving Elizabeth and Thomas Seymour threatens to destroy that.  Mary clings desperately to a spinsterish Catholicism while Elizabeth, her own woman, nevertheless learns one more lesson in not trusting men to have power over her.

When Edward dies Mary takes the throne.  Though Elizabeth has done nothing to earn it, she distrusts her younger sister, convinced there are plots to dethrone her.  Purdy shows Mary trying at first to return Roman Catholicism to its preeminence in England through her confidence that "the people" wanted it, then through gentler efforts, but when it becomes a bargaining chip in her marriage to Philip of Spain, her zeal takes its famous "Bloody" turn.  Elizabeth can only hang on, playing the game as best she can, until, some day, her older sister dies without issue.

It is both satisfying and enlightening to watch Mary reach out for love in the wrong place, to watch her health, both physical and mental, deteriorate and to see what impact a monarch who is desperate and going mad is on her people.  At the same time, the smarter more reflective Elizabeth learns hard lessons that will ultimately make her a glorious queen, perhaps the best monarch England has ever had.  Purdy's skill in bringing these two women and others in their world to life demonstrates great skill as a novelist, one that deserves more notice than she got with her earlier novels.

If you are a reader of Tudor novels who relishes the catwalk of the women's and even the men's fashions of the day, you will adore this novel.  It seems that every time someone comes on the scene, you get a top to toe description of what she is wearing.  The author clearly relishes the Tudor court's finery and knows enough to describe it faithfully.

For me the history, the speculative peeks behind the scenes, and more than anything the sensitive exploration of the two women's emotional development is the attraction for this novel that I fully anticipate will take its place as one of the best loved and respected novels in the genre of Tudor-era historical fiction.