I recently bought Clare Cherry and Claire Ridgway’s new book, George Boleyn: Tudor Poet, Courtier & Diplomat, and I was very glad I did. The blurb for the book promises a lot of information: “George Boleyn has gone down in history as being the brother of the ill-fated Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry… Read more Review of George Boleyn: Tudor Poet, Courtier & Diplomat
May 19, 1536 was the day Anne Boleyn was murdered by her husband, and it is generally considered a tragedy. The next day, Jane Seymour became engaged to the killer, and I think that should be generally considered a travesty. In my book, Blood Will Tell, I make no secret of the fact I find… Read more Third Weddings and a Funeral
Odds are good that anyone reading this has heard of Beyoncé’s sister Solange physically attacking Beyoncé’s husband, Jay-Z, in an elevator a few days ago. It has been parodied on Saturday Night Live and the mainstream media has reported on it. NPR justly pointed out that “This happened — literally — behind closed doors. If… Read more Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Mary Boleyn Carey were in an elevator …
On the last post, a commenter asked how non-artificial sweeteners like stevia and monk fruit sugars affect the body. After a little research I found that stevia seems to be just fine, because unlike artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, it has no effects on blood sugar levels. Monk fruit, the actual fruit appears to be… Read more Ah, Honey
There is a new documentary in town called Fed Up and it attacks “the conventional wisdom of why we gain weight and how to lose it, Fed Up unearths a dirty secret of the American food industry-far more of us get sick from what we eat than anyone has previously realized.” Moreover, it stars that… Read more How Sweet It’s Not
Tomorrow, is the 6th of January, the Twelfth Day of Christmas, the Feast of the Epiphany, and the date celebrated as the day the Magi brought gifts to the infant Jesus in Bethlehem That means tonight is Twelfth Night. Why tonight and not tomorrow night? Days used to start at sunset so when the sun… Read more Wassail!
The Tudor era was a good time for holidays. For one thing, the Puritans hadn’t taken over England and killed all the “frivolous” joy of Christmas yet. That means that the people who lived under Henry, Mary, and Elizabeth Tudor all got their Twelve Days of Christmas, even if the court’s Lord of Misrule was… Read more New Year’s Day, Tudor Style
I first became familiar with William “Billy the Butcher” Cumberland when I read the first book in Diana Gabaldon’s series, Outlander. The hero is a Scotsman from the late 18th century, so the topic of the Duke of Cumberland comes up. (I can highly recommend the first three books of Gabaldon’s Outlander series, but it… Read more Billy the Butcher’s
I confess. I have not read either of Hillary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning novels, Wolf Hall or Bringing Up the Bodies. Mea Culpa. I’ve heard that they are excellent (and I am sure that they are), but I freely admit that I am afraid I will not enjoy them because I am not crazy for the… Read more I am not fond of Thomas Cromwell
I am always a bit tentative when I read a book by an author I have never read before. I am such a raging bibliophile that I get easily bored and/or frustrated with writing that doesn’t enthrall me like I want to be enthralled. This wariness is multiplied exponentially when it is a book of… Read more An Incredibly Good Historical Read