3 stars
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
In general, this isn’t really the type of book that I read. I’m not a huge fan of romance, gloss over at sex scenes, and don’t have much interest in reading about “a twenty-first century womanizing media mogul”. However, the idea of re-imagining Henry VIII in a more modern setting was fascinating and I am really interested in his wives. I went into this book thinking that it would be more focused on the women and was pulled in by the promise of “his perfect world is about to come crashing to the ground.”
In reading other reviews and from my own experience, if you like Harry, you will in general like this book. But if you can’t stand him, you’re going to be disappointed.
Overall, the book was good. While the dialog was a bit awkward and cheesy at times, the writing for the most part was well-done The real feat was the overall story structure mirroring that of history with a lot of “easter eggs” thrown in that referenced what really happened to the historical figures. (Bonus points for making some pun-y references such as offering Maria (Mary I) a Bloody Mary.) This was quite a concept to tackle and I think Hayfield did a great job in that respect. I wasn’t necessarily interested in all of the craziness going on, but really enjoyed its historical inspiration and the nuggets of truth worked into the narration. It was helpful to have a list of the cast of characters and their tutor equivalents.
However, my dissatisfaction boils down to two things. One, the pacing was so awkward. Hayfield did a good job mirroring the history, but the pace was weird and honestly just fatigued the reader. There was so much detail and development in the first two marriages, then everything else just shoots by. Yes, I realize that’s pretty much how it played out in real life, but after all of the in-depth stuff with Katie and Ana, the rest of the wives didn’t even feel like characters, just little blips in the plot line. I was exhausted after reading such lengthy development, then the second half flew by. I wanted more from the women and this book just did not deliver on its promise. The female characters all exist to serve Harry and help him through life as he figures things out. In a book that references #MeToo and strong women, this felt like an injustice to the characters. Rather than focusing on the individuality of the wives, they all just orbit Harry and help to develop him as a character.
The other issue I had was Harry’s whole thing. Reading the interview was very enlightening to get into Hayfield’s head.
SPOILER AHEAD
She states that she “set out to give that man his comeuppance”, but ended up “with someone I couldn’t help liking. Rather a lot.” She fell in love with her character and didn’t want anything too bad to happen to him. I get that. However, the audience didn’t necessarily feel the same way. If you hated Harry and wanted him to pay for being a jerk the whole book, the ending feels like quite a let down with him getting a slap on the wrist. I also think the marketing of this book was misleading. Reading blurbs, I was under the impression that Hayfield’s original intent of karma would come through so I was very disappointed when it did not. After trudging through 400 pages waiting for Harry to get what was coming to him, the ending felt dissatisfying and muted.
END SPOILER
Overall, a good read, but not quite what I expected it to be based on how it was marketed. It had really good potential that it just didn’t live up to.
I am kind of intrigued by Hayfield’s sequel idea, Sister to Sister about Eliza (Elizabeth I) and Maria (Mary I), but am not sure about revisiting Harry’s character on his road to redemption. Honestly, I’d rather just forget about Harry and focus on the women.