Innocent Traitor

BONUS: This edition contains an

ISBN 0345494857
(ISBN:13 9780345494856)

excerpt from Alison Weir's Mary Boleyn.

I am now a condemned traitor . . . I am to die when I have hardly begun to live.

Historical expertise marries page-turning fiction in Alison Weir’s enthralling debut novel, breathing new life into one of the most significant and tumultuous periods of the English monarchy. It is the story of Lady Jane Grey–“the Nine Days’ Queen” –a fifteen-year-old girl who unwittingly finds herself at the center of the religious and civil unrest that nearly toppled the fabled House of Tudor during the sixteenth century.

The child of a scheming father and a ruthless mother, for whom she is merely a pawn in a dynastic game with the highest stakes, Jane Grey was born during the harrowingly turbulent period between Anne Boleyn’s beheading and the demise of Jane’s infamous great-uncle, King Henry VIII. With the premature passing of Jane’ s adolescent cousin, and Henry’s successor, King Edward VI, comes a struggle for supremacy fueled by political machinations and lethal religious fervor.

Unabashedly honest and exceptionally intelligent, Jane possesses a sound strength of character beyond her years that equips her to weather the vicious storm. And though she has no ambitions to rule, preferring to immerse herself in books and religious studies, she is forced to accept the crown, and by so doing sets off a firestorm of intrigue, betrayal, and tragedy.

Alison Weir uses her unmatched skills as a historian to enliven the many dynamic characters of this majestic drama. Along with Lady Jane Grey, Weir vividly renders her devious parents; her much-loved nanny; the benevolent Queen Katherine Parr; Jane’s ambitious cousins; the Catholic “Bloody” Mary, who will stop at nothing to seize the throne; and the Protestant and future queen Elizabeth. Readers venture inside royal drawing rooms and bedchambers to witness the power-grabbing that swirls around Lady Jane Grey from the day of her birth to her unbearably poignant death. Innocent Traitor paints a complete and compelling portrait of this captivating young woman, a faithful servant of God whose short reign and brief life would make her a legend.

402 pages

Published, February 27th 2007

(Ballantine Books)

Warning: there are some scenes of child abuse. Please seek professional help if you or someone you know has been in a similar situation.

First Impression

set in 1st person Innocent Traitor begins with a small prologue set on 14th November 1553, after trial of lady Jane Grey as are an in the quote, 'My palace is now My prison '.

From here it leads to Leicestershire 1537, with the viewpoint of Frances Brandon, the Marchioness of Dorset, Jane's mother, who after 2 previous still births gives birth to a daughter "healthy and vigorous". 

Both Frances and Henry are referred to as being ambitious, and greatly disappointed that she is a girl, after wanting a son.

My Rating ⭐

For me Innocent Traitor was a slow paces account based on the viewpoints of different women surrounding Jane Grey instead of giving her a strong voice Jane's character got lost behind other characters. 

I decided to DNF on page 49, after reading the Innocent Traitor seemed to bed together and dragged on. From Jane's births it moved to Jane Seymour give birth which is irrelevant and pointless in a book that is supposed to be about Jane Grey. I was also found reading about how Jane was treated from 3 very distressing.

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Part of the Family

WHAT WOULD YOU SACRIFICE TO UNCOVER THE TRUTH?

ISBN 0008327025
(ISBN13: 9780008327026)

On the surface, Anna Witherall personifies everything the aspirational magazine she works for represents. Married to her university boyfriend David, she has a beautiful home and gorgeous three-year-old twin daughters, Stella and Rose. But beneath the veneer of success and happiness, Anna is hiding a dark secret, one that threatens to unravel everything she has worked so hard to create.
As Anna finds herself drawn into the dark and highly controlled world of secret intelligence, she is forced to question her family’s safety, and her own. Only one thing is certain: in order to protect her children, she must leave them, forever. 
And someone is watching. Someone she thought she could trust. Someone who is determined to make them all pay.
Stylish and assured, The Most Difficult Thing is an irresistible combination of contemporary espionage and domestic suspense, and a compulsive, highly charged examination of betrayal.

400 pages

Published April 16 2020

(The Borough Press)

First Impression

Set in 1st person Part of the Family is a slow paced story giving the accounts of Anna and Maria in three parts.

Through a prologue we are given an insight into the afternoon of a woman later found out to be Anna, 2 month after giving birth being out shopping on her own. Maria is described as the Ever-compentant nanny of her twins. 

3 years (chapter one) 05:40 having another night where she has hardly sleep Anna gets up quietly as not to disturb her husband, david. An hour later, she is ready for her to leave to catch up on work before her 12pm flight, having kissed her girls goodbye, all that is left is to walk through the open door.

My Rating ⭐

There are a lot of mixed reviews about Part of the Family so I was starting with an open-mind.

The first thing that comes to mind is how confusing the story is, there were lots of flashbacks leaving  more questions than answers eg. The prologue is 2 months after Anna gave birth, chapter one 3 years into the future then chapter 3 is when she was a teen. 

I found it odd and increasingly difficult to get a clear picture on what is happening some pages made me question why I chose Part of the Family. 

Through the changing plot twists I struggled to from a connection to any characters and any time start to like a character something happened for me to change my mind.

It took long than expected to read, and I left feeling disappointed at a whole the ending for me was flat and felt rushed.

Quotes

Swing Time

Two brown girls dream of  

ISBN 0241144159
(ISBN13: 9780241144152)

being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, about what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either.

Dazzling energetic and deeply human, Swing Time is a story about friendship and music and stubborn roots, about how we are shaped by these things and how we survive them. Moving from Northwest London to West Africa, it is an exuberant dance to the music of time. 

453 pages

Published November 15th 2016 (Hamish Hamilton)

First Impression

The narrator comes across as a plain Jane her mother dressed them both as plainly as possible. Tracey is described as her mother's "striking accessory" with diamante everything, and expensive trainers.

My Rating ⭐

Set in the 1st person, Swing Time tells the story of the narrator and her friend, Tracey. Zadie Smith has sectioned of stages of the story into 7 separate parts.

In the first section the plot jumps from Tracey and the narrator meeting to church and then dancing. As a reader, I find myself baffled as it doesn't seem to have a flow it's just put together.

3 chapters in I had no other option than to put it as a "DNF". I just couldn't do it...from the blur it sounded like a book worth reading but I am so disappointed with how it is structured which is one of the reasons why I have to give it 1 star.

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