A reader scanning the back cover of this novel would be led toexpect a historical romance. It is not a romance, nor is it purely ahistorical novel. It reads like someone's rejected master's thesis dressed up to look like romance. The author manages to offend nearly every religion, slandering catholics and protestants and muslims alike. Usually I resell my books when I've finished with them, but this one went straight into the trash can. If Ms. Kyle wants to write some New Age exploration of spirituality, she should make her subject clear from the beginning. This is a truly awful assault on all religions. END

One person's "blasphemy" is another person's search for truth. This novel was disguised as a historical romance but it is a detailed fictionalized account of the religious strife of the reformation. The whole point of the novel is the insanity of intolerance as seen through the eyes of a young woman during the time when Henry VIII is breaking from the Roman church. However, the book is not preachy, it has romance, suspense, and adventure--a real page turner. I read the sequel, A Dangerous Devotion, which is even better, and I wish this author would write more!

Come on - How could life get worse? I kept thinking poor Hazel's life could only get better. All would be well in the end ... but no. The abyss she dropped into got worse and worse. Even her love for Black John was a source of nothing but sadness and degradation. It ended like "Gone with the Wind," -- Black John's daughter vowing revenge. The book was so well written, earthy and well paced that I was sorry I could not find any joy in reading it. I don't mind some horrible scenes and sadness (it was 1546) but I wanted to scream at no bit of happiness or hope. If you like feeling down and depressed, this is the one for you. I had to immediately read a regency novel to gain my needed happy ending. -- Reading is entertainment - if I want depressing stories, I can always read the newspaper.

When I first saw this book, I knew that I wanted it.The cover was enough to entice me in. I really enjoyed the main characters, poor little Hazel, and Black John. Hazel's story was sad and Black John's wasn't by any means wonderful.While reading it certain lines and conversations made me think this love story just cannot end right.So I skipped to the back of the book, and my heart was broken, I actually was sick for months. I can't say I would tell anyone else to read it, because the ending is hard to live with. It is a well written book and without the ending, I truly would have loved it. As it is, I just keep it put up and won't let anyone else read it. (Mary)

I enjoyed this novel very much. A very fast read. There are a few little historical inaccuracies which were sacrificed to tell the story, but it didn't distract me too much, and won't bother you unless you know alot about Tudor History. The one thing I didn't care for was the fact that the book did not give us enough details about Anne Boleyn. We get to know her sister, Mary, very well, but at the end Anne is still mystery. Perhaps this is what the author intended, but I was hoping for a chapter written from Anne's POV at some point in the book. Still, this is a good, romantic book. The tragedy of Anne Boleyn is told well here.

The contention that Anne was noble and gave her life for her country is utterly absurd. She was firstly a political pawn moved by her famliy and secondly desperately ambitious. Admiring Anne for her skillful manipulation of court politics is one thing but romanticising her as some kind of heroine misses the point entirely.

This book is one of the best fictional biographies of Anne Boleyn. It is well-written and beautiful. Vercors believes in Anne 100%!

Ms. Saaler tells us that Catherine of Aragon did not mind being divorced- had no problem with being put aside by Henry VIII. Not true! If this error is any indication of Ms. Saalor's research, then the entire book needs to be read with a huge grain of salt. Very disappointing.

This book pulls together a good amount of information about the life of Henry VIII's most neglected queen, Anne of Cleves. The chapters on her life following her divorce are especially interesting. Saaler, however, spends a fair amount of space contrasting Henry's divorce from Anne to his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and it is here that she makes a number of mistakes. She makes numerous references to Emperor Charles V being Catherine's uncle, when he was actually her nephew. She also states that Catherine was precontracted to Henry's brother Arthur, but that they were never married. They did in fact marry, and the entire divorce question turned on whether or not that marriage had ever been consumated. These may not be grave errors, but they do tend to detract from Saaler's credibility for the reader who well-versed in Tudor history.

JansenÕs book is 232 pages long, with footnotes, bibliography and index accounting for almost 38% of the book; actual narrative occupying only 62% (146 pages) of the total space. The book was written primarily with an academic audience in mind and the author has researched thoroughly; tracing information through a variety of primary source documents. The structure is simple and straightforward, with a brief introduction, followed by eight chapters dealing with case studies on four women (two chapters each), and a short conclusion. The style hovers somewhere between a novel and a documentary and remains a relatively easy read. As to purpose, Jansen herself comments:

As I began to collect these stories, I realized that I approached the task with a number of assumptions about what I would find. As my investigations slowly progressed, I found that every one of my assumptions was challenged by what I discovered.

The whole book emerges as a personal quest to restore women from the footnotes back into the main narrative of history and the resultant realization of her false personal assumptions being overturned. The title of the book gave pledge for the promise of exciting insights to come, but despite the overwhelming presentation of literary evidence, it amounted to very little by way of historical reflection and proved a deeply unsatisfying book that served only to highlight the problem of crossing over the disciplines and assuming that her own assumptions are representative of those in the discipline being entered. Jansen gives the impression that this book is an historical supplement to the wealth of current Tudor history works, but it adds very little to our understanding of women in Tudor times. HarrisÕs essay on the political influence of early Tudor women reveals JansenÕs work to be somewhat underinformed and disingenuous, despite her assiduity.