Goodreads Monday: 28/08/2023

Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.

Hello!

Happy Monday Everyone. I hope everyone has had a good start to the week. It has been a Bank Holiday weekend here in England and this has meant lots of reading for me.

My chosen book this week is by one of my favourite writers and historians, Alison Weir. I absolutely love Weir’s fiction and non fiction and can’t get enough of her books.

Young Henry began his rule as a magnificent and chivalrous Renaissance prince who embodied every virtue. He had all the qualities to make a triumph of his rule, yet we remember only the violence. Henry famously broke with the Pope, founding the Church of England and launching a religious revolution that divided his kingdom. He beheaded two of his wives and cast aside two others. He died a suspicious, obese, disease-riddled tyrant, old before his time. His reign is remembered as one of dangerous intrigue and bloodshed—and yet the truth is far more complex.

The King’s Pleasure brings to life the idealistic monarch who expanded Parliament, founded the Royal Navy, modernised medical training, composed music and poetry, and patronised the arts. A passionate man in search of true love, he was stymied by the imperative to produce a male heir, as much a victim of circumstance as his unhappy wives. Had fate been kinder to him, the history of England would have been very different.

Here is the story of the private man. To his contemporaries, he was a great king, a legend in his own lifetime. And he left an extraordinary legacy—a modern Britain.

Please drop me a link with your Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit.

Happy Reading