Customer Reviews

The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

As an avid reader of Tudor biographies with a particular fascination for Queen Anne Boleyn, I approached this historical fiction novel with some skepticism. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed! Not only was it factually accurate, but the best read on Anne Boleyn I've had. This novel is premised on the idea that Anne Boleyn kept a diary from the inception of her romance with King Henry VIII up until the day before her execution. This diary was discreetly given to Anne's daughter Queen Elizabeth I shortly after her coronation. Most of the book is comprised of the chronological diary excerpts, which I ravenously devoured. Robin Maxwell captured the language pattern of these Medieval times so magnificently. As I read Anne Boleyn's heartfelt thoughts it was a most intimate and poignant experience. I fought back tears reading Anne's tender words for the daughter she would never live to see grow up. This fictional but authentically presented diary gives the reader a personal and unique forum to experience this royal trajedy.

This book attempts at going beyond the facts and trying to explore the feelings, emotions and ambitions of people that lived more than four HUNDRED years ago. While historically inaccurate, I found this book to offer something beyond Alison Weir or Antonia Frasier's stellar, but heavily factual, interpretations. If you want to explore with an open mind the story of what could have happened, then read this book. My only beef with this book had to be the awkward love trysts of both Elizabeth and Anne. These passages about the love making of both queens is out of place and unnecessary at best. Also the constant references to Anne Boleyn's sixth finger, a myth that is slightly possible and mostly unlikely, is annoying. Do not read this book if you are expecting a high brow look at the facts, or even a high brow look at this era. But for a little bit of guilty pleasure in believing this is how it was, this (slightly fantastical) version of the story makes everything just tie up so nicely, that you almost want to believe that there was a diary, and that Anne Boleyn did have contact with Elizabeth I beyond the grave. The reviews for this book so far have all been very true, the bad and the good, because the truth is that this book creates mixed feelings. Try it out, but don't buy it until you know that you are ready for something a little different.

Much has been made about the man who defied the Church, took its rich lands, and changed a nation's faith. But what do we know about the woman who made it all happen? Robin Maxwell give the reader a rare glimpse of not only the lady of the court who kept a king's lust at bay for six years to get the crown, but her daughter Queen Elizabeth as well.

What worked so well with this novel, were not necessarily Anne's diary entries, but her daughter's reaction to them. Elizabeth is a headstrong woman of considerable wit and charm, growing up not knowing her mother, and coming of age as an unmarried queen in a patriarchal society. Through her mother's diary she learns not only her past, but learns how to shape her future, and ultimately her country's future as well.

The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn does an excellent job of personalizing the much maligned second wife of King Henry VIII. Her domineering father, gold bricking sister, and loyal brother all shape the Anne that wins the heart of a monarch. Her diary chronicles her history that shapes the woman that would be queen, and as her unfortunate inability to birth a prince, her tragic demise culminates on the scaffold. Robin Maxwell portrays the proud Queens of England, both Anne and Elizabeth, with grace and honesty.

Historical fiction this is not. Historical fiction comes from folks like Mary Renault, in my opinion. But if your definition of historical fiction includes romance novel authors such as diana gabaldon, then perhaps, this, too is historical fiction. These days the label "historical fiction" seems to be tossed about to enhance the dignity of low-brow sex-thrillers. This is a syrupy fantasy novel that falls flat even in the romantic sequences that are the focus of the book. Wooden characters and equally stiff interactions. Yes, this is a harsh criticism and it's my true appraisal of the book. Without negative or luke-warm reviews such as this and others here, we'd have a collection of 5-star reviews where apparently every book on Amazon was "the best I've ever read!" Not too informative, eh? I read these reviews before I purchase books or check-out from library. Hence, it's nice to see honest critiques of books as opposed to hyberbole. My recommendation is to skip this book.

If Barbara Cartland is your idea of a great novelist, please, buy this book. All other individuals with any vague knowledge of the Tudor family will find this book painful. It reeks of bad dime-store romance prose. Search for a history book instead. ANY history book on the Tudors will suffice. It will be far more interesting and much less irritating.

Few love stories, fiction or non-fiction, are as fascinating or tragic as that of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. This novel goes back and forth between the life of the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth I, who was Henry and Anne's only surviving offspring, and Anne's diary given to Elizabeth by one of her mother's former waiting women. The diary entries, as well as what we are told of Elizabeth's early years, are both historically accurate. The author is careful to incorporate fiction with these details and the result is a masterful and entertaining novel.

Having believed for many years what people had said of her mother, it is fascinating to see Elizabeth's reactions to her mother's personal thoughts and the tragic turn her life takes. Having resisted any ill thoughts of her father, Elizabeth is compelled to think differently after reading how her mother (and her young self) were used and cruelly discarded by him. The more sexual aspects of the diaries entries are handled well and in no way distort the historical accounts. In fact these passages ADD to the known history as it is a given that this was an enormously passionate affair, which not only caused the ending of a marriage, but also the separation of the Church of England from Rome and Catholicism.

Anne's diary presents her much as history has: A young and ambitious girl thrown into a large pool of sharks who had to fight for her survival. And fight she does, though to a tragic end. Her last entries, particularly one directed specifically to her daughter, Elizabeth, are touching and honest. If you enjoy Tudor history, you'll savor this book until the last page!

The recent announcement of the first public display of a ring worn by Queen Elizabeth I caught my eye. The interesting thing about the ring is a secret compartment containing a portrait of Anne Boleyn. This lent my reading of this book about the relationship between the memory of Anne Boleyn and the life of Elizabeth I a certain poignancy it might not have otherwise had. What this ring suggests is that Elizabeth treasured the memory of her mother but knew that it could not be given public expression due to the circumstances surround Anne Boleyn's death. This is pure speculation, the real reason that Elizabeth had the ring cannot be known. But this author does try to recreate the story as it might have been.

I found myself reading this book not as a fictional recitation of historical events, but as the story of a dysfunctional family and how the actions of one generation affect the next. The author uses the relationship between Anne and Henry VIII to explain why Elizabeth made some of her early choices with regard to matrimony. I've seen this same theory expounded by other writers but Maxwell does a very good job by interpolating Anne Boleyn's diary entries with events in Elizabeth's life.

Even if you do know the story of Elizabeth's life, this version is worth reading.

I love fiction and nonfiction books about Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots, and their century. But this was a real disappointment. It didn't offer any new understanding of the time period or of Elizabeth or Anne's characters. The love scenes were awkward and embarrasing. They seemed gratuitous and out of place. Thank goodness there are other good books about this period out there. Check out Alison Weir, Reay Tannahill or Patricia Finney for good books set in 16th century England.

I am a true blue Tudor fanatic, and I have been for several years. I first ran into this topic with a children's book by Kathryn Lasky called ELIZABETH I: RED ROSE OF THE HOUSE OF TUDOR, which is a fictional diary of Elizabeth I when she was an adolesent. Needless to say, I was absolutly THRILLED to find one written on an adult level.

Maybe it was due to my extremely high expectations, but I was sorely disappointed. It painted cunning Anne as a naive little lightskirt with less-than-interesting ideas. The lion himself, King Henry VIII, was portrayed first as a skirt-chasing, dim-witted, stupid man who had a very attractive countenance. He then is all-of-a-sudden turned into a vulgar-looking, power-hungry, repulsive vilain. I found the book itself to be uninspired, gaudy, and dull.

Okay, okay, it did have a few good parts, a few good laughs, and I was surprised at how well and how agreeable to my imagination Anne was in her last few days of life. All in all, however, it was a struggle to finish the book and I hope you will spend your time with more enjoyable Elizabethan mysteries (hint: TRY FIONA BUCKLEY!!!!!!!)

For someone who researched the Tudor dynasty as tirelessly as Robin Maxwell purports, she completely failed to pick up on the importance of character development and scene juxtaposition. I felt absolutely nothing for Anne's scheming and ministrations; neither did I find her antics unutterably selfish or unmitigatingly powerful. She was as unexciting as a bowl of cottage cheese. Still less did I buy the emotional seesawing of Henry VIII. Granted, true history speaks well for the man's fickle nature, but I cannot believe that he, the King of England and head of his own Church, would've placed all of his ample wits and faith into the promises of a son as given by a mere slip of a girl whose pedigree he had to doctor in order for her to be accepted as his worthy bride. Let us give credit to him as the great sovereign his people rightly believed he was. He may have been lustful and duplicitous, but he was never as stupid as Maxwell portrays him. As far as the changing scenes between Elizabeth and the reading of her mother's diary, Elizabeth herself is nothing but a flitting shadow, sneaking off to read the writings in private (she's the Queen; no matter what Maxwell asserts, she did not need to conceal her actions). This novel leaves me cold, bored and desirous for a giant high school textbook on Tudor England. Want real historical fiction with honorable and sentient central figures who live as vividly in the pages as they did in real life? Try Sharon Kay Penman. She beats the historical pants off Robin Maxwell any day.