(This review may contain spoilers).
It took me a while to get into this book, as it started out with a lot of information dumping and I would have liked to see Katherine’s relationship with her parents and siblings, rather than have it summarised.
I did feel that Arthur wasn’t a very strong character, which made sense with him as a historical figure, but even though Katherine assumed he was just writing what he was told to, there was very little about the letters she and Arthur had been exchanging with each other.
I had some very mixed feelings about Henry VII. I felt the female family members were more interesting than him and I couldn’t help but feel a lot of sympathy for Katherine, considering how badly she was treated for such a long time. During the period after Arthur died and before she married Henry, I found myself repeatedly getting angry on her behalf.
While I used to read a lot of books about the six wives of Henry VIII, I only knew bits and pieces about Katherine of Aragon, so it was nice to have a book that was entirely about her. While it was a bit confusing with so many historical figures with the same name, I did find there were a lot who eventually grew on me. And it was good to see something of the politics, even though there was a lot of development that I felt was glossed over. Even towards the end, the characteristics of Katherine’s maids were glossed over and told about rather than shown.
I did feel a lot for Katherine, but certainly at the start of the book, it was good to see a slightly different version of Henry VIII, rather than just him as a villain (which he was, but the beginning of the book showed a different side of him). However, I could still recognise who he would become in the way he treated Katherine before they were actually married.
It was good to see Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour appear and the crossover between the next two women Henry VIII was to marry. However, I don’t think I’ll be reading the next book/s in this series any time soon, as there were times this was bogged down with too much summarising of character relationships and history.
Ink of Blood 