This third book in Alison Weir’s series on the six wives of Henry VIII tells us much of what we didn’t know about her life before becoming Queen ... I found this to be a first-class novel and have great respect for Alison Weir’s ability to create a fascinating story out of very little surviving documentation. She calls Jane an enigma, which adds to her fascination ... Weir has given us a great story from a turbulent age.
Historian Alison Weir continues her series of mammoth Tudor historical novels ... but there's precious little nuance in Weir's book. Instead, readers get buckets and buckets of otherworldly grace and delicacy. Jane's brothers Thomas and Edward were as coarse and conniving a pair of climbers as were ever drawn to the flame of Court intrigue, but if we're to judge by personalities and world-views, Jane not only never talked with them, she very likely never met them ... When a novel's main character and narrative focus refers to herself as 'pure in heart' without the smallest trace of irony, you know you're in for a bit of a slog. Weir saves her novel from being a total quagmire largely through skills she's developed over decades of writing history: she knows how to fill a page with atmospheric historical details without ever seeming to do so, and she knows how to bring alive the passions and customs of an alien time ... Catherine may well have been tedious enough to qualify for sainthood, but a novelist who's willing to whitewash Anne Boleyn will certainly have no trouble draining the life out of a mere sketch of a character like Jane Seymour.
...a bit heavy on history, a bit light on the juicy melodrama, with some very old-fashioned storytelling tropes—in short, a solid novel although not a perfect one ... The Haunted Queen does several things well, including managing to combine a sense of drama with a sense of deep history, telling us new things about Jane that grow her beyond the innocent naïf the history books have cast her as. Yet while the historian in Weir often enlightens the author’s fiction, it sometimes sinks the book in overly-ornate detail ... The book is plenty romantic—well, if you like Henry the VIII’s ornate pleading and begging, followed by his hot-headed childishness and threatening rages. Jane is a good heroine to follow, and is interesting and not too sweet and soppy in this telling.
Best-selling Weir’s impressive novel shows why Jane deserves renewed attention. Without any dull moments, Weir illustrates Jane’s unlikely journey from country knight’s daughter to queen of England ... From the richly appointed decor to the religious tenor of the time, the historical ambience is first-rate. With her standout novel in the crowded Tudor-fiction field, Weir keeps the tension high, breathing new life into a familiar tale and making us wish for a different ending.
In the third volume of her six-novel series on the unfortunate wives of Henry VIII, Weir...offers a dramatic and empathic portrait of Jane Seymour ... Weir portrays Jane as determinedly virtuous, giving in to Henry’s passion only after she has fallen in love with him and is assured that he means to marry her ... Deft, authoritative biographical fiction.
...a sumptuous historical novel anchored by its excellent depiction of Jane Seymour ... Of course, being a novel of the Tudors, there is a great deal of description devoted to the lavish clothing, foods, architecture, and pageantry of the royal court. Weir also does not stint on the various scandals and uproars of the time. This is a must for all fans of Tudor fiction and history.
