📖 Book Review ~ The Queen’s Painter by Wendy Holden

Headline 
18 June 2026

Thanks to the publisher for the invitation to read this book

 

When the brilliant young Holbein arrives at the Tudor court, Anne Boleyn is among his first patrons. As she rises to the top, Hans rises with her. Courtiers clamour for his portraits of life-like accuracy; pictures which tell the truth about their subjects.

When his beloved Anne is beheaded on false evidence, Hans is heartbroken and enraged. And he's not alone. Poet and diplomat Thomas Wyatt is agonised at his own unwitting part in her tragedy. He and Hans join forces and vow revenge on the person they blame for Anne's downfall: Thomas Cromwell, the king's ruthless chief minister.

But what can a poet and painter do against the most powerful man in England? The answer comes when Henry VIII seeks a fourth wife. Cromwell turns to Holbein and Wyatt, his trusted artist and envoy, to travel across Europe to find and paint a new bride. Cromwell's position depends on a portrait of someone young and beautiful, painted with Hans' trademark truth. Anything less could bring the whole court crashing down.

It's the opportunity they've been waiting for...

📖  My Review..

Hans Holbein is the celebrated German painter right at the heart of the Tudor court. His clever portraiture depicts the great and the not so good of Tudor England but it is his connection to Anne Boleyn, and his search for vengeance, following her death, which features strongly in this story. 

Devastated at the callous obliterating of Anne Boleyn, Holbein joins forces with the poet Thomas Wyatt to take revenge on the one person they hold entirely responsible for Anne’s devastating downfall; namely the King’s henchman, Thomas Cromwell. Two years after Anne’s death, Henry VIII now seeks to replace Jane Seymour, so the royal families of Europe start to dread the envoy who comes in search of a potential bride for the now infamous King of England, who callously replaces lost wives.

The Queen’s Painter is a different slant on the usual Tudor court intrigue and I enjoyed learning more about Holbein and the background to some of his famous paintings. The story flows well and I found moving between European courts interesting particularly the imagined background to the famous portrait of Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan, once on Henry VIII’s list as a potential bride, who bravely said she would only consider marrying Henry VIII if she had two heads.

Wrecking revenge on Thomas Cromwell was never going to be straightforward and this is a clever interpretation of using art to gain the upper hand. The story is imaginative, well described and with an authentic feeling of its time and place in history. Tudor England with all its myriad intrigues comes alive and revenge, when it comes, is all the sweeter for being unexpected.

About the Author

Number one bestselling author Wendy Holden has written ten consecutive Sunday Times Top Ten bestsellers. A former journalist on the Sunday Times, Tatler and the Mail on Sunday, she contributes to a range of publications and is a TV and radio regular. She was a judge for the Costa 2013 Novel and Book of the Year Awards. Wendy lives with her husband and two children in Derbyshire.

X @Wendy_Holden

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📖 Favourite Read of the Month ~ The House of Boleyn by Tracy Borman

Hodder and Stoughton
23 April 2026

Thanks to the publisher for the invitation to read this book

HEVER CASTLE HOLDS ALL THE BOLEYN SECRETS ...

When nobleman Thomas Boleyn, lord of Hever Castle, is called to London in 1509 to present himself to a newly anointed King Henry VIII, he sets in train events that ensure the Boleyn name will never be forgotten.

Years later, as Henry VIII relentlessly pursues Thomas' daughter Anne Boleyn to be his queen, Hever Castle becomes her escape, a place where her trusted attendants and her father must advise, protect and support her. Lavish gifts are sent by the King and the Boleyn family is given ever greater prominence at court, their glory shining over everything and everyone. Until ambition turns the family on itself, enemies outside the castle circle closer and danger begins to stalk the corridors of Hever. And as Henry's gaze moves elsewhere when Anne cannot give him the heir he so desperately seeks, the family faces a terrible, bloody fate.

But as long as Hever still stands, hope still exists.

Combining drama, danger and passion, Tracy Borman brings the Boleyn family's three-decade rise and precipitous fall to vivid life using their world at Hever, family and servants alike, as never written before. The result is a powerful and emotional novel of family, fate and history.

 📖 My Review..

Although Ann Boleyn’s tragic story has been told many times, there is always room for another interpretation and recounting Anne’s life by using as its focus Hever Castle is an interesting way of bridging the gap between what is fact and what is undoubtedly fiction. The Boleyn family home, nestled in the quiet of the Kent countryside, acts as a foil against the machinations of Tudor life and whilst the meteoric rise of the Boleyns, during the years of Henry’s courtship with Anne, is well documented we can only guess at the overall effect that Henry VIII’s influence had on all those who knew Anne.

There are a few interesting snippets within the story which made me raise my eyebrows but this is historical fiction after all and so there is room for a few unexpected additions. I thought everything worked well together and I enjoyed spending time at Hever, watching as the servants went about their business, quietly keeping the household running smoothly during turbulent times. Observing Anne’s dilemma as Henry’s pursuit of her became more apparent, her indecision, and realisation that her life, as she knew it, would effectively be over once she accepted Henry’s proposal. That all this would be played out in the shadow of the royal court made me realise just how vulnerable Anne became as her relationship with the King soured and the much longed for male heir never arrived.

Cleverly, and imaginatively written, the story has enough historical detail to make the narrative realistic, with some interesting additions. I especially enjoyed learning more about Anne’s wider family, particularly her grandmother, Margaret Butler, of whom I knew very little. In any account of Anne Boleyn I want there to be a happier ending for her however, time stands as it is and the tragedy of her tragically short life inevitably evolves as history dictates. 

In The House of Boleyn this respected historian has given us a refreshingly different look at Anne, from her relationship with her family, friends and servants, to Anne’s deep abiding affection for Hever Castle. I am delighted to make it my Favourite Read of the Month for April.

About the Author

Tracy Borman OBE is Chief Historian at Historic Royal Palaces and Chief Executive of the Heritage Education Trust. She studied and taught history at the University of Hull. Tracy is the author of a number of highly acclaimed books including Crown & Sceptre, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him, The Private Lives of the Tudors: Uncovering the Secrets of Britain’s Greatest Dynasty, Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII’s Most Faithful Servant, Matilda: Wife of the Conqueror, First Queen of England, Elizabeth’s Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen and Witches: A Tale of Sorcery, Scandal and Seduction. Tracy is also a regular broadcaster and public speaker, giving talks on her books across the UK and abroad.

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Blog Tour ~ Anne Boleyn : 500 Years of Lies by Hayley Nolan

I'm delighted to host today's stop on this blog tour

Little A
1 December 2019

My thanks to the publisher and Midas PR for my copy of this book
and the invitation to be part of the blog tour

Beheaded by her husband. Silenced by history. Now Anne Boleyn has a voice at last.

Anne Boleyn has been sold to us as a dark figure, a scheming seductress who bewitched Henry VIII into divorcing his queen and his church in an unprecedented display of passion. Quite the tragic love story, right? Wrong.

This electrifying expose of Anne Boleyn’s life and relationship with Henry VIII is based for the first time on the full, uncensored evidence, revealing the shocking suppression of a powerful woman in history’s true story.

In removing Anne from the line up of the ‘Six Wives Gimmick’, Hayley Nolan shuts down modern accusations of sexual blackmail at the hands of an ‘ambitious temptress,’ and instead provides proof that Anne Boleyn was a politician, activist and humanitarian working in government on schemes to relieve the poverty epidemic; campaigning for the amnesty of refugees in Europe, and fighting for the freedom of religious expression. Yet Anne’s work has repeatedly been censored and ‘male-washed’ over the years, and more so recent decades. But if ever there was a time for this sexist misinterpretation to be called out and ‘herstory’ to be heard – that time is now.

This bold new analysis is the culmination of over three years of intensive research by Britain’s exciting new historian, fusing historical evidence with a gripping psychological analysis that diagnoses Henry VIII with the mental illness of sociopathy. A prognosis that will change the way we view Henry and Anne’s ‘love story’ forever.

So, leave all notions of outdated and romanticised folklore at the door and forget what you think you know about one of the Tudors’ most notorious queens. She may have been silenced for centuries, but this urgent book ensures Anne Boleyn’s voice is being heard now. #TheTruthWillOut

What did I think about it...

So much has been written about this most enigmatic of Tudor Queens that it is quite difficult to know what is fact and what is fabrication, after all, history was written by those who had, perhaps, more to gain from her downfall, rather than her successes.

In this comprehensive look at Anne Boleyn’s life, the author seeks to restore the balance by giving a detailed look at some of the supposed fabrications which surround Anne’s life, and seeks to offer her own views on the facts and falsifications which seem to surround Anne’s short, but eventful, life.

Everyone knows that Anne’s tragic life didn’t end well and her tempestuous relationship with Henry VIII has been the subject of hundreds of fictional novels and a staggering amount of non fiction books which each offer a myriad reasons as to why Anne and Henry’s relationship could have ended so tragically. In Anne Boleyn : 500 Years of Lies, the author offers an explanation  into Henry's volatile nature and the suggestion that he was a sociopath, with a borderline personality disorder, is a plausible, if, perhaps, controversial one. However, wherever his mercurial moods took him, it is always without doubt that he was a very dangerous person to be around.

The author offers a comprehensive look at Anne's life, from her early start at the court of Margaret of Austria, to her return to England in 1521, her ill fated courtship with Henry Percy and her ongoing feud with Cardinal Wolsey, and yet, the book is about so much more than Anne's romantic dalliances, it offers an insight into her moralistic views and her enthusiasm for religious reform. I have to be honest and say that I didn't really discover anything in this interpretation that I hadn't read before, but I think of you are new to Tudor history and wish to learn more about Anne Boleyn in  a book which has a distinctly modern feel in the way it is written, then this makes an interesting start.

The order of Anne's life has been expertly explored by so many eminent historians who are all keen to offer their own academic interpretation of Anne's rise to short lived glory and whether she was martyr or sinner remains to be seen, but what can be gleaned from all of these historical biographies is that the enigma of Anne Boleyn's short and tragic life remains, even after 500 years, a fascinating conundrum.

About the Author

Historian and Anne Boleyn expert, Hayley Nolan is the presenter and researcher of the hit digital vlog series The History Review and its spin off iTunes podcast. A graduate of London’s prestigious Royal Court Young Writer’s Programme, Hayley further trained in screenwriting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). She has worked with Historic Royal Palaces, Anne Boleyn’s childhood homes of Hever Castle and the Chateau Royal de Blois, France, as well as the National Archives of the UK government. She lives in London.

Instagram @The HayleyNolan

Twitter @TheHayleyNolan

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