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A Dangerous Inheritance Alison Weir 9780091926236 Books

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A Dangerous Inheritance Alison Weir 9780091926236 Books

Interesting parallel story of the probable life of Kate Plantagenet, the illegitimate daughter of Richard III (about whom very little is known) and the life of Lady Katherine Grey, sister of Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days Queen. Ms. Weir interweaves their stories with that of the lost Princes in the Tower -- the two sons of Edward IV who so conveniently disappeared shortly after Richard's coronation. Ms. Weir is careful about citing her sources and drawing reasonable conclusions about these lives. The "dangerous inheritance" shared by Kate and Katherine as well as the two lost princes was their family bloodlines, which made them and/or their progeny potential rivals to the Tudors for England's crown. The book illuminates the period with which it deals. Well-researched historical fiction.


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A Dangerous Inheritance Alison Weir 9780091926236 Books Reviews

I give 10 stars, if it were possible to Allison Weir for this magnificent book!

I do have a suggestion for my fellow readers If you haven't already... read Sharon Kay Penman's book " SUNNE IN SPLENDOR".Penman gives an excellent time span and explanation of the reigns of Edward IV and Richard III. This will clarify the two-story aspect of Weir's book. By looking at the dates, you will be able to tell which Katherine is telling her story-Katherine Plantagenet or the later Katherine under Elizabeth I.

As a great lover of historical fiction, it is always so sad for me to realize that the royal or wealthy women in history all had desperately unhappy and powerless lives.
I think it probably helps that I have read several historical novels on the kings and queens of England (particularly by Jean Plaidy) and that I had recently watched the series Monarchy presented by David Starkey on Netflix. I found this novel a very interesting and different approach to many set in this time period. The only time I was sometimes disoriented between Kate and Katherine' s stories was if I put it down for a while and came back to it. But the use of first and third person was very helpful to keep me on track. I found this a very engaging read and as this was the first novel I have read from this author, I am all ready to start another novel by her that I checked out from the library. I was very impressed with the vast knowledge of the time period even down to her word choices. The period felt authentic and that is what I enjoy most about reading historical fiction.
A Dangerous Inheritance starts out very engrossing, juxtaposing the life of Katherine Grey with that of Kate Plantagenet, her great-grandmother's cousin. By a strange coincidence, both Katherine and Kate married into the same family, although (spoiler?) Kate died without children and Katherine's marriage was annulled.

At first, the two stories run entirely in parallel, taking place a tidy seventy years apart. Weir does a good job contrasting the way Kate's father Richard III's usurpation of the throne differs from that of Lady Jane Grey, Katherine's older sister. Richard III, loathe as Kate was to see it, wanted to be king, while Jane Grey was forced to by her parents and father-in-law.

The two girls are linked when Katherine runs across a portrait of Kate in her new husband's home. Kate's ghost appears to beckon Katherine to the attic, where her belongings are Katherine finds a packet of papers and a necklace belonging to her kinswoman. With effort, she discovers that Kate was investigating the murders of her cousins, the Princes in the Tower, which her father was convicted of in the court of public opinion-- indeed, this has been Katherine's opinion all her life.

The two girls are linked supernaturally, often catching glimpses of each other's shades when they happen to be in the same place, although neither of them ever realize it. This added a kind of suspense to the book (that and Katherine's dreams of a Kate who'd gone curious to her grave) that never really pays off. It's foreshadowing at best-- Katherine catches a glimpse of Kate in a scene that will be explained later in one of Kate's chapters.

The copy for the book is a little misleading. It acts like the great linking factor between Katherine and Kate is the mystery of the Princes in the Tower. It isn't-- the link is their royal blood, and how much trouble they get into because of it. The problem is that the mystery of the Princes is much, much more compelling here.

The book starts to fall apart shortly after Katherine's marriage is annulled. At this point, Katherine completely forgets about Kate and the Princes for a good ten years or so, continuing to live her historically documented life during the reigns of Mary I and Elizabeth I, while Kate Plantagenet (who is known to history only through her marriage contract and various grants made by Richard III to her husband) stays within a much more compressed, tightly-plotted story line-- because it was, unlike Katherine Grey's, plotted! Kate's story continues uninterrupted while we have to sit through Katherine's... well, Katherine is no Elizabeth I or Lady Jane Grey. She's ambitious but flighty, and while Elizabeth is cruel to her, denying her an honorable marriage when that was, basically, the only honorable thing a woman could do, simply for fear that Katherine would bear sons, something very few Tudors had successfully done, Katherine is still a poor decision-maker. She's sympathetic because of her circumstances, not because of her personality. I finally lost all sympathy for Katherine not after she entered into a secret marriage against Elizabeth I's will, but after she and her husband discussed a fear of pregnancy at a time when no one knew they were married and he was about to go overseas, then couldn't stop having sex anyway, thereby ensuring that if she wasn't pregnant THEN, she certainly was NOW.

On the bright side, this is what finally gets us back to our plot. Elizabeth imprisons Katherine in the Tower for her disobedience, declaring there's no proof and therefore no marriage. While there, she's haunted by ghosts of the Princes crying out for help... but the infuriating thing is, there's nothing she can do about it. Her jailer ends up doing all the legwork to finally solve the mystery (which was exactly what Katherine had been told all along), and just tells it to Katherine as she sits in her room. Katherine has one last dream of a sad, resigned Kate, and we follow our heroines to the ends of their lives, which illustrates the point that the central theme of the story is royal blood, not the mystery of the Princes in the Tower.

The book starts out very strong, but the two stories are uneven. Kate's spans only about a year or two at most, before fast-forwarding to the end of her very short life. And all of it is conjecture-- again, Kate is only mentioned four times in the paperwork of her father's reign. We know absolutely nothing about her, so Weir was obligated to be a little more creative-- and she had much more control over what happened and when. She had to hit the known facts, such as Kate's marriage and where, but otherwise was free to imagine the details. Katherine Grey's life was slightly longer, and MUCH more carefully documented, and where Weir trips up is documenting all of that information about Lady Katherine Grey. Following our heroines to their deaths was probably unnecessary, and ESPECIALLY unnecessary were the interludes about what Elizabeth was thinking. Making the murder mystery the central theme of the novel (and laser focusing on that) would have improved it, I think, but if you go in knowing that the murder mystery is going to be largely ignored for a large chunk of the book, you'll be better off for it.

The fact that Katherine completely forgets about the mystery until she, too, is locked in the Tower is actually somewhat compelling, but that she has no part in solving it except as a passive listener is unforgivable. If the two stories had remained in the tight parallel they started as, or started to converge near the end, the book would have been better, and things would have been much cleaner if Weir found a way for Katherine Grey to solve the mystery a) on her own and b) much, much earlier chronologically than she did.

And get rid of the Elizabeth chapters. They were apparently included to keep Elizabeth from looking TOO villainous by explaining her motives, but dude, stories need villains. Richard III is the closest thing this story has to one.
The names in English history are repeated constantly and the events are similar decade after decade. the lives of these two Katherine s bear enough similarity to leave the reader scratching her head in confusion. And yet the tales are engrossing. I believe it may be the device of entwining the two tales that creates the confusion. It might put off a casual reader but a determined history buff will slog through
Interesting parallel story of the probable life of Kate Plantagenet, the illegitimate daughter of Richard III (about whom very little is known) and the life of Lady Katherine Grey, sister of Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days Queen. Ms. Weir interweaves their stories with that of the lost Princes in the Tower -- the two sons of Edward IV who so conveniently disappeared shortly after Richard's coronation. Ms. Weir is careful about citing her sources and drawing reasonable conclusions about these lives. The "dangerous inheritance" shared by Kate and Katherine as well as the two lost princes was their family bloodlines, which made them and/or their progeny potential rivals to the Tudors for England's crown. The book illuminates the period with which it deals. Well-researched historical fiction.