At the Mercy of the Queen by Anne Clinard Barnhill

More infoĪt the Mercy of the Queen by Anne Clinard Barnhill (2012), about Lady Margaret Shelton, a cousin of Anne Boleyn who serves as Anne's lady-in-waiting. The Queen's Lady by Barbara Kyle (2008), about a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon, who enlists a roguish sea captain in her risky efforts to aid her mistress #1 in the Thornleigh Saga series. Other novels about ladies-in-waiting to Henry VIII's queens: More about Kathryn: In the Court of Six Queens at. Kathryn's heart-throb is too often absent for the novel to be saturated with sex scenes, but readers who like a touch of the romantically explicit won't be disappointed by Kathryn: In the Court of Six Queens.

It's especially broad in the Anne of Cleves section, with Kathryn struggling on short notice to make the appallingly gowned and groomed princess presentable for the king. Readers fond of the humor in Regency romances will find a similar style of comedy here. Along the way, pagan rites burble up from England's mystic past, a clever theory is offered about the Princes in the Tower, and Kathryn herself narrowly escapes Henry's hazardous attentions. Kathryn manages to be present for most of the dramatic highlights of Henry's reign and a few invented crises. The mystery lord slips in and out of the story as Kathryn weds another, bears children who give her joy and heartache, and risks her own life time and again as queen after queen infuriates Henry into head-chopping rages. Kathryn's romantic interest is a mysterious lord with moonstone-blue eyes, whose 'family specializes in deeds that no one else will sink to.' Fortunately for the plot, the course of true love does not run smooth. In other ways the novel does stretch credibility, but readers caught up in its lively story probably won't mind. This premise is not so far-fetched Anne Parr, the sister of Henry's sixth wife, really was lady-in-waiting to all six queens. Descended from a Plantagenet by-blow, Kathryn is Anne Boleyn's cousin and related to the Howard family, so despite her loyalty to Henry's first wife, she returns to court to serve the second. Catherine's fondness for the affectionate child leads to friendship as Kathryn grows to womanhood. Its fictional heroine is the daughter of a lady-in-waiting to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Kathryn: In the Court of Six Queens offers a romantic feminist romp through the court of Henry VIII. Kathryn: In the Court of Six Queens by Anne Merton Abbey

At the Mercy of the Queen by Anne Clinard Barnhill