Katheryn Howard, the Scandalous Queen

This sumptuous novel in New York Times bestselling author Alison Weir's Six Tudor Queens series--"a vivid re-creation of a Tudor tragedy" (Kirkus Reviews)--details the life of nineteen-year-old Katheryn Howard, King Henry VIII's fifth wife.

"Absolutely stunning . . . Katheryn emerges from this beautifully realized portrayal as beguiling, vivacious, and, in the end, tragically naïve."--Tracy Borman, author of The Private Lives of the Tudors

Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived

In the spring of 1540, Henry VIII is desperate to be rid of his German queen, Anna of Kleve. Prematurely aged and with an ever-growing waistline, he casts an amorous eye on a pretty nineteen-year-old, Katheryn Howard. Like her cousin Anne Boleyn, Katheryn is a niece of the Duke of Norfolk, England's premier Catholic peer, who is scheming to replace Anna of Kleve with a good Catholic queen. A flirtatious, eager participant in the life of the royal court, Katheryn readily succumbs to the king's attentions when she is pushed into his path by her ambitious family.

Henry quickly becomes besotted, and the wedding takes place a mere fortnight after the king's union to Anna is annulled. Henry tells the world that his new bride is a rose without a thorn and extols her virtue, while Katheryn delights in the pleasures of being queen and the rich gifts her adoring husband showers upon her: the gowns, the jewels, and the darling lapdogs. She comes to love the ailing, obese king, enduring his nightly embraces with fortitude and kindness. If she can bear him a son, her triumph will be complete.

But Katheryn has a past of which Henry knows nothing, and which comes back to haunt her--even as she courts danger yet again.

Author: Alison Weir
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 05/18/2021
Pages: 496
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 1.20d
ISBN13: 9781101966624
ISBN10: 1101966629
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Historical | Renaissance
- Fiction | Biographical & Autofiction
- Fiction | Sagas

About the Author
Alison Weir is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Anna of Kleve, The Princess in the Portrait; Jane Seymour, The Haunted Queen; Anne Boleyn, A King's Obsession; Katherine of Aragon, The True Queen; The Marriage Game; A Dangerous Inheritance; Captive Queen; The Lady Elizabeth; and Innocent Traitor, as well as numerous historical biographies, including Queens of the Conquest, The Lost Tudor Princess, Elizabeth of York, Mary Boleyn, The Lady in the Tower, Mistress of the Monarchy, Henry VIII, Eleanor of Aquitaine, The Life of Elizabeth I, and The Six Wives of Henry VIII. She lives in Surrey, England, with her husband.