Though it is Anne Boleyn who became the second queen of Henry VIII, her sister Mary had her own entanglements with royalty which in many ways paved the way for the rise of the Boleyns.
Philippa Gregory retreads this same ground some two decades later, but my understanding is that The Last Boleyn is a more restrained retelling of this already dramatic story.
I thought that Harper did an excellent job of fleshing out all the many historical figures which people this book, including members of both the English and French royal courts, as well as the Boleyns and the Careys. The slow-burn relationship which develops between Mary and Staff is really lovely too, and I came to relish the comfortable if unglamorous life that the couple ends up leading, even as those with loftier ambitions fell around them,
I did wish we got a little bit more of a view of Anne’s rise and fall from grace – while Mary experiences and observes the process from the outskirts, she doesn’t seem to understand her sister for a long time, and so we don’t get much insight either. On the other hand, it does make perfect sense that Mary is wrapped up in her own affairs, and I enjoyed following them, so it’s not much of a complaint. The last section of the book becomes a little slow, before it gathers tension again in the crash of the Boleyns’ fortunes.
I listened to the audiobook, which is narrated by Melanie Crawley. I enjoyed her performance of Mary’s delicate, timid voice, though she gets a bit nasally in her interpretation of some other characters.
