For fans of historical novels Jean Plaidy needs no introduction and it is great to see one of her classic works of - and I don't mean this in any derogatory sense - "faction".   This is real history told in the form of a novel and tells the story of a true survivor - Katherine Parr, Henry VIII's sixth and final wife who managed to outlive him.  By this time he was a fractious old tyrant, in poor health and bad temper and she had her work cut out for her to keep her head.  Around her other people lost theirs; Lady Jane Grey is portrayed in her tragic fragility, and Katherine risks all when she flirts with one of the most dangerous men in the kingdom Thomas Seymour. Somehow clever Katherine survives it all and has four husbands.

Plotting Chancellor Wriothsley (he does so enjoy those interrogations), doomed Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley, unfortunate Anne Askew, flirtatious and sparkling Elizabeth.they are all her in this highly readable novel that brings the past to life without making it all seem trivial and over-sensational, or trying to make the characters the readers are to sympathize with too politically correct and losing verisimilitude.  At the end of the book is a handy list of all Plaidy's novels and I hope that Hale bring out a few more.