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    The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn: A Novel
    Ebook407 pages7 hours

    The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn: A Novel

    By Robin Maxwell

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Now available again, the first book in Robin Maxwell's acclaimed Elizabethan Quartet: "Wonderfully juicy . . . Maxwell brings all of bloody Tudor England vividly to life” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

    One was queen for a thousand days; one for over forty years. Both were passionate, headstrong women, loved and hated by Henry VIII. Yet until the discovery of the secret diary, Anne Boleyn and her daughter, Elizabeth I, had never really met.  

    Anne was the second of Henry's six wives, doomed to be beloved, betrayed, and beheaded. When Henry fell madly in love with her upon her return from an education at the lascivious French court, he was already a married man. While his passion for Anne was great enough to rock the foundation of England and of all Christendom, in the end he forsook her for another love, schemed against her, and ultimately had her sentenced to death. But unbeknownst to the king, Anne had kept a diary.

    At the beginning of Elizabeth 's reign, it is pressed into her hands.  In reading it, the young queen discovers a great deal about her much-maligned mother: Anne's fierce determination, her hard-won knowledge about being a woman in a world ruled by despotic men, and her deep-seated love for the infant daughter taken from her shortly after her birth.

    In the journal's pages, Elizabeth finds an echo of her own dramatic life as a passionate young woman at the center of England's powerful male establishment, and with the knowledge gained from them, makes a resolution that will change the course of history.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcade
    Release dateNov 21, 2011
    ISBN9781628724547
    Author

    Robin Maxwell

    Robin Maxwell began writing novels about the historical figures she had been obsessing about since graduating from Tufts University with a degree in Occupational Therapy. Her bestselling first novel The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn,  won two YA awards and has been translated into fourteen languages. The Wild Irish —an epic tale of Ireland's rebel queen, Grace O'Malley—closed out her Elizabethan Quartet and is now in development for a television series. Signora Da Vinci and Jane: The Woman Who Loved Tarzan are tales of the remarkable women behind two of the world's most beloved wildmen, Maestro Leonardo and Lord Greystoke. Robin lives with her husband of forty years, yogi Max Thomas, at High Desert Eden, a wildlife sanctuary in the Mojave Desert.

    Read more from Robin Maxwell

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    Reviews for The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn

    3.5/5

    15 ratings12 reviews

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    • 3/5
      First book in a series about Elizabeth I. Upon becoming Queen, Elizabeth is presented with the hidden diary her mother kept from the time she arrived in Henry's court through her execution. An interesting idea sucessfully completed. Don't waste your money on the other two books.
    • 4/5
      I liked the idea of this book - learning Anne Boleyn's story direct from her. Elizabeth I is given her mother's diary to learn more about her. Though it is probably realistic, diaries are not that interesting to read. People write about mundane matters, as does Anne. I would recommend this to younger readers, but an older audience may want to look elsewhere.
    • 3/5
      Pretty fascinating take on Anne Boleyn's story!
    • 4/5
      This was a very interesting book and I really enjoyed it. Shortly after Elizabeth becomes Queen she is given a diary of her mothers that was held for her in secret and she finds herself immersed in her mother's story. She discovered what really happened with her parents marriage and how much her mother really loved her. The story implies that this diary is the reason that she decides to remain single and have no children. It also covers her affair with Robert Dudley and the consequences of that as well.
    • 3/5
      Overall I enjoyed this book, although I was not as fond of Elizabeth’s storyline, perhaps because she simply did not have as much of one as did her mother. This was a very sympathetic portrayal of Anne. The reader could see her harden and turn into the woman oft vilified, could also see how this was almost forced upon her as she tried to keep her head above water in this dangerous age. There were a couple of things that sort of shook me out of the story, however. At one point there was a sentence about Henry that said something to the effect of “…his father dying and his brother dying thereafter.” The way it was written was a bit more ambiguous than that, but it certainly seemed (to me anyway) to be saying that Henry VII died before his son Arthur, which would have made Arthur king between Henry VII and Henry VIII. Since Arthur predeceased Henry VII by about 7 years and was never king, that really brought me out of the story. More minor was a reference by Anne to Judas denying Jesus three times. Peter was the apostle who denied Jesus, Judas the apostle who betrayed him for silver. Although, since the Bible was not widely available in English at the time, it is possible that Anne would have made such a mistake.
    • 5/5
      A great idea. Anne writes a diary and gets it to her daughter. Elizabeth learns that men are trouble and decides not to marry, choosing power over love.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely loved this book! Imagine if Anne Boleyn kept a diary that was secretly handed down to her daughter, Elizabeth Tudor, who was raised beleiving her mother to be an adulteress and a traitor. I thought the book really made these historical figures come alive, and it was so fascinating I hesitated to put it down at all! Of course, we all know what happened to Anne, but reading her "diary," gaining insight into how she might have felt and what she thought, I still hoped for a happy ending for her. I look forward to reading more from this author.
    • 4/5
      An interesting intrepretation of the life and death of Anne Boleyn, made all the more interesting by the fact that I'm also watching a slightly different interpretation of the story in "The Tudors". This story tells of a diary found and given to Queen Elizabeth who reads it and finds some wisdom between the pages. Wisdom she carries over into her own life.
    • 4/5
      I snapped this up when i saw it because i am obsessed with Tudor history and the novel looked interesting. It is a well written tale and remains fairly faithful to the known historical facts.
    • 2/5
      Great insight into what Anne might have written and what her daughter Queen Elizabeth may have been thinking all those centuries ago, although we will never truly know...
    • 4/5
      A great premise for a story fully realized. There were some parts of the story that were a bit clumsy, but overall it was fascinating and offered great insight into life in King Henry's court. I feel much more in touch with both Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth. A great read.
    • 3/5
      Lots of politics of Anne's time as well as Elizabeth's time. Scary that there was so much manipulation and back stabbing that one needed to fear for their lives.