Customer Reviews

No Will But His: A Novel of Kathryn Howard

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Sarah A. Hoyt's "No Will But His" is an excellent historical romance about Kathryn Howard, the fifth wife of King Henry VIII of England. Kathryn Howard has always been given short shrift by scholars because she was young, frivolous, and her letters showed abominable penmanship and little literary craftsmanship; seemingly, Kathryn Howard was the one woman King Henry VIII married without accomplishment. But as Ms. Hoyt's novel shows, Kathryn Howard was far from stupid or silly; she was young, vivacious, somewhat unlettered but bright and ambitious . . . and she attracted the King as a bee attracts honey because of her good qualities, not in spite of them.

Kathryn Howard's life has always been an enigma to modern readers, partly because of the motto she chose from the first -- "No One Will Than His," which was a shrewd move on her part as she was the second cousin of his doomed second wife, Anne Boleyn, and Kathryn knew as well as anyone that King Henry VIII's overweening pride must be catered to at all times. So she adopted a somewhat deceptive mask of docility, and played up her best qualities to attract, then keep her husband, the King, engaged and focused. She found it her patriotic duty; she felt it was important, and necessary, and needful, which is why she married the King despite having no love for him. (She did like the King, and she hoped that would be enough. And of course there was no realistic way to tell King Henry VIII "no" in anything, so once Henry's will and focus was upon her, she had to acquiesce. That she enjoyed doing so is a product of her time and mores, as Ms. Hoyt ably shows.)

This is an engaging tale that explains why Kathryn Howard would take such a motto; it explains why her penmanship and letters were so bad (she was a disregarded poor relation for the first fourteen years or so of her life, and was educated primarily in music and etiquette once her formidable grandmother took an interest); it explains why she took a lover (partly to provide for the succession, as Henry's health was notoriously bad by this point, and often could "not perform the (husbandly) office"), and how hard she fought to stay alive. Ms. Hoyt makes the case that Kathryn Howard was more unlucky than anything else; she was smart, and wanted to provide for the succession, and had a great zest for life.

Even though I knew from history that Kathryn Howard was doomed from the start, I rooted for her; this is an engaging, flawed heroine whose only real faults were that she was young, and vivacious, and wanted to live. Had she lived in just about any other era -- with any other King being her husband -- she would've fared far better, I sensed after reading this novel.

At any rate, I enjoyed this novel immensely, and believe readers in historical romance, fiction, or those who love England and/or the life and times of Henry VIII will appreciate and admire this book. The craftsmanship is exceptional, the historicity is authentic, and the story-telling is well done; what else could you possibly want? (Aside from reading all of Ms. Hoyt's books you can possibly find, that is.)

Five stars, highly recommended.

Barb Caffrey

I'm a huge fan of the Tudor times, and I was happy when I found out about this book. Most of the Tudor fiction out there is either about Anne, or her child, the future Queen Elizabeth. No complaints here, since Anne's story is the most interesting, and the most tragic. Rarely is there a book about Henry's fifth queen, Katherine Howard. Like the other fictional book about Katherine Howard I've read before, this book was quite short, and though it was well done, I still found it lacking. As any book about the Tudors, I wish it was longer and more drawn out. Though Katherine's life was short, the story of her does not have to be. I wish the author had included at least a hundred more pages in the book, particularly in the time of the marriage between her becoming queen and her execution. Those who don't know much about the period may wonder how it all went downhill. The author rushed through her ending too quickly, leaving me wanting more. A good start though to anyone wanting to know more about the lives of Henry VIII's queens.

No Will But His: A Novel of Kathryn Howard

No Will But His: A Novel of Kathryn Howard by Sarah A. Hoyt puts us intimately in thoughts and emotions of the fifth of Henry VIII's wives. Kathryn Howard, though of an illustrious family name, was the daughter of the ne'er-do-well of the family. Raised in penury by a succession of step-mothers, none of whom could be bothered to spend the money to educate their step-children, Kathryn is taken at an extremely young age to be part of her grandmother's household. But her education is still neglected, she's raised by the other 'ladies' who are all but ignored by her grandmother, with the result that an extremely intelligent, breathtakingly beautiful child is easily led astray. A mind *is* a terrible thing to waste.
Kathryn Howard has left us all but illegible letters, and a skeleton which modern forensics places at seventeen years of age at the oldest. This would, by all modern reckoning, make Henry VIII a child molester, and we are there with the child. Given her poor upbringing, and her tender age, it's no wonder that Kathryn Howard, bright though she was, made the choices that ultimately led to the headsman's block.
Sarah A. Hoyt shows us Kathryn Howard as the bright girl who was kept ignorant, perhaps so she could be better used as a pawn by her family -- who would stop at nothing to regain the power they had when Kathryn's cousin, Anne, had been Henry VIII's second wife.
Sarah A. Hoyt has used all the letters, forensics, and scholarship available to write a riveting, heart-wrenching story. Even though we know the ending, we travel to that fateful moment with Kathryn, completely in her thoughts and emotions.
Start reading it early -- otherwise you'll be up all night, because you won't want to put it down!

Sarah A. Hoyt, mostly of Shakespeare fiction fame, takes one of the most scandalous wives of the Henry VIII, Kathryn Howard, in true Philippa Gregory/biographical fiction tradition. I had high hopes for this novel -there's so much juicy intrigue to pull from. How could you go wrong?

Readers first meet young Kathryn Howard when she's sent off to live in the home of the dowager duchess, a family relative. Even though Kathryn is raised to be a well-mannered, graceful young woman who will one day marry a man and bear his children, she finds herself entangled with a lustful music master and a young man named Francis Dereham, whom she hoped to marry one day. After discovering her indiscretions, the dowager duchess sends her away to be a lady-in-waiting to the new Queen Anne of Cleves, within something of a hidden agenda. Of course, much like her infamous cousin Anne Bolyen, Kathryn catches Henry's eye and eventually becomes queen herself, but of course, her questionable past catches up with her as do her other questionable deeds...

Sounds like a great recipe for some juciy fiction, doesn't it? It should have been, but Hoyt manage to make it well...boring. First, Hoyt's writing style is composed of long, windy sentences and flowery dialog that fit better with her other Shakespeare-fiction novels, but tend to leave readers out of breath. Hoyt's prose also tends to frequently fall flat, and lacks adequate detail or emotion. More importantly, No Will But His has dull characters that have hardly any personality or compelling traits that bring them alive for the reader. I was left wondering if Kathryn was ambitious, a pawn in a bigger game, or just an unintelligent flirt. I never even got a sense of romance between Kathryn and her adulterous lover Thomas Culpepper, just the need for them to come together for the purposes of the plot.

Though the plot itself is solid, there's no characterization at all. Frankly, I was sorely disappointed in No Will But His, and went away with no added understanding of Kathryn Howard the character or the historical figure. Tudor fiction fans should give this one a miss. Don't waste your time here.

"No Will But His" was not entirely unpleasant. I would, for instance, prefer it to dental work or walking on hot coals... but otherwise wouldn't bother picking it up ever again.

Despite being over 300 pages long, the novel is surprisingly brief in it's content, as though the author skimmed over the entire span of Kathryn Howard's life. It left me feeling like Ms. Hoyt was in a hurry to tell the story so she could move on to something else - hopefully something more interesting. She seemed to focus on the sexual aspects of Kathryn's life, spending an inordinate amount of time detailing her escapades and trysts. The reader walks away from the novel with an impression of Kathryn as an empty-headed floozy who can't keep her legs closed. To this point, Sarah Hoyt has developed a consistent (albeit one dimensional) character - whether or not that character bears any resemblance to the real Kathryn Howard, I don't know.

Bottom line- reads more like a cheap paperback romance novel than a fact-based historical fiction. I'll probably have forgotten all about it within three months.

I bought this book on a whim, thinking it would be interesting. As an immense fan of the Tudor period and Henry's wives in particular, I was looking forward to reading the book. Unfortunately, not only was the book itself a massacre of the character of Katherine Howard, it was a horribly written piece of trash as well. Taking out all of the erotic sections of the book that were little more than flat, unnecessary descriptions, the worst infraction of this book was the prose writing in and of itself. Not only were there words missing from sentences and paragraphs that made little to no sense, there were so many typographical errors that I am honestly stunned it made it past the publisher in such a condition. I could overlook some of that, but when the author spells Katherine's first name SIX DIFFERENT WAYS throughout the book, using each one at least TWICE? That's simply beyond the pale. The same happened with Lady Rochford's name. A word of advice to authors: if you're going to write for public consumption, learn to spell your main characters' names, at the very least.

I despised the book from beginning to end, and wouldn't recommend it to ANYONE, especially not anyone else who happens to have a fondness for the Tudors.

I swear I have read every book that comes out regarding my favorite period of history, The Tudor Period. Even though I much prefer historical fact to fiction, some of the novels are pretty good. Most authors mix true historical fact with fiction so it reads like real history. This book was so boring and did very little to hold my interest. I continued to read it hoping it would get better as I went along, but it didn't. It appeared to be written by a 14-year-old and never went any place! I was glad when the end came and Catherine Howard was executed. I am sure that Catherine felt the same way and ran to the executioner's block just to put herself out of her misery of being portrayed as this airhead! My opinion is don't waste your time or money on this book. It's a big yawn! Forgive me - I going to go to sleep now.

I thought the novel started off very well with its depiction of how Kathryn Howard came to be a ward of her step-grandmother. It started to lose me when her first lover came into the picture. I think her passivity went beyond naivete and that was very off-putting. Especially after she admitted she wasn't much into the man in question. The entire episode felt very odd. Her relationship with her second lover felt much more authentic, but her last affair left me sort of baffled given the prologue. The prologue seems to indicate she is using Culpeper, but their later scenes don't completely jibe with that. The novel is wrapped up in a rush that left me unsatisfied.

Overall, it's not a bad book, just not a very satisfying one. I enjoyed 'The King's Rose'(YA) much more. That story felt much more coherently written. And, of course, Jean Plaidy's take on Katharine Howard in 'The Rose Without A Thorn' is a must for Tudor fans.

It was a great book, it arrived on time, if not early and didn't really cost that much at all. I recommend it.

Readers of historical fiction will not be disappointed in Sarah A. Hoyt's newest, NO WILL BUT HIS. The story of King Henry VIII and his fifth wife, Kathryn Howard, NO WILL BUT HIS will take readers on a fabulous journey into the life of royalty.

Orphan Kathryn Howard is youthful, beautiful and supposedly innocent. As a distant cousin to the now deceased but still talked about Anne Boleyn, Kathryn knows exactly how the court of Henry VIII works. Only the strong survive in this volatile place and Kathryn learned early to not draw attention to herself. Free to do what she wants, Kathryn's innocence is a public persona for the world to see - and inadvertently she catches the eye of the most important and powerful man in the world - England's King Henry VIII.

Having the King's ear is something Kathryn can deal with - it's the king himself that young Kathryn isn't excited about given Henry's age and health issues. And so King Henry's fifth wife, his "Rose without a Thorn" seals her fate. She takes a lover and is caught. The rest is history.

Sarah A. Hoyt has taken the historical and factual tale of Henry Tudor and Kathryn Howard and made it shine. NO WILL BUT HIS has carefully crafted emotions which in turn fills this ill-fated love affair with powerful and precocious vocabulary and artfully crafted scenes. NO WILL BUT HIS brings to life the pageantry of King Henry VIII's royal court. Even knowing the end result of this timeless tale didn't dampen my joy at reading such a majestic novel.

Natalie S.