Privy Seal
His Last Venture

The second volume of Ford’s Fifth Queen trilogy continues with the author’s revisionist depiction of Katherine Howard as a teenage polymath, an avid student of classical literature. She seems to calmly accept that her exceptional beauty captivates all the men around her and hopes to use this, in com......more

I don't know if Ford's writing is better in this second book, or if I'm just getting more used to his style. Anyway, I enjoyed this more than the first one, and I'm exited about starting the third. Again, the little glimpses of everyday life is what makes this story really come to life too me. I can'......more

This second entry in Ford's "Fifth Queen" trilogy is marginally better than the first but still leaves his characters with half-developed and confusing motives and often wretched, overblown dialog, as though the characters had eaten too many dictionaries. The immediacy of the scenes, with their oddl......more

I loved this book. This was fully as good as the first book I read by Ford Madox. Katherine Howard is a young girl tapped by King Henry the Eighth to be his fifth wife. Throckmorton wants her to succeed for various reasons, and Cromwell wants her to fail for just as many reasons. In turn, Katherine......more