From my bookshelves. This edition is a "Not for resale" that looks like it was a freebie with a copy of Red magazine. I (attempted to) read this slim novel immediately after The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory. The former is twice the size of the latter, and whilst The Constant Princess is focussed on Catherine of Aragon, this book tells of Anne Boleyn.
Anne Boleyn

Whilst in The Constant Princess, the first affair acknowledged by Catherine of Aragon is Anne Boleyn (thus setting up the rest of the Tudor series) The Queen of Subtleties presents that Catherine knew of previous affairs and attended the baptism of the illegitimate Fitz, even if she never formally acknowledged him.

The book starts the day before Anne's execution and she's looking back on where it all started, as a letter and a warning to her daughter Elizabeth. As with other fiction books about Anne Boleyn, she is betrayed as scheming, manipulative, but ultimately rather naive and deluded.

Henry didnt divorce Catherine because of me. For me, yes; in the end, yes. But not because of me.

It is interspersed with the narrative Lucy Cornwallis, the King's confectioner, whose narration covers 1535 - 1536.

The following from an article in The Scotsman about this book makes both Lucy - as the maker - and Anne as the received, both Queen of Subtleties

Subtleties are, or rather were, intricate sugar sculptures and statues created as beautiful centrepieces for Medieval feasts - the beginnings of modern-day sugar craft, although this was rather more like sugar art. The exquisite adornments are thought to have been created in the early 15th century with subtleties appearing at the coronation feast of eight-year-old Henry VI in 1429.

I have to admit this was a DNF. I got about 50% through (bearing in mind this was a very short book) before the anachronistic language was simply too much. Anne called her parents "mum" and "dad". When angry she said words like "fuck" and "christ". I know this is classed as a "reimaging" but Dunn and her publishers would do well to look at books like Longbourn by Jo Baker (loved the story AND how it was told) or Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James (not so sure about the story, but liked how it was told). In other words - you shouldn't sacrifice the way the book is written in order to get attention....I do wonder whether the book or the deal with Red's publishers came first, and am I being snobbish about Red's circulation?

La bella, ambiciosa y testaruda Ana Bolena conmocionó a la sociedad inglesa de su tiempo, pero tras provocar el divorcio de Enrique VIII se gana muchos enemigos y fuerzas poderosas se confabularán para hacerle pagar un alto precio. Mientras tanto, en las cocinas de palacio, Lucy Cornwallis, pastelera del rey, se entrega a sus quehaceres. Ella sola, entre doscientos hombres, convierte el azúcar en fantásticas figuras para las celebraciones reales y sortea las complicaciones de la vida cortesana. Pero también Lucy y su confidente, el músico Mark Smeaton, se verán atrapados en el torbellino que amenaza a la nueva reina y que podría acabar con todos sus sueños...

I picked this up in the local thrift store, and it will be heading back there just as quickly as it came home. After my seemingly bad run of luck with books recently, I was hoping that an historical piece of fiction might help break the dam; it was not going to happen with this book and, to be honest I didn’t finish it either.

I had many issues with the book as far as I read. The character of Anne Boleyn was rather insulting when compared to what is known of her from historical documents. In this interpretation of her character she is portrayed as being the innocent pawn of her Families’ ambitions to rise higher within the Tudor Court, rather than the driven and confident woman that readers are used to. As one of the narrators of the book, the language she uses is far too modern for the time period in which it is set, and this was the reason for my not finishing the book. The language used by both Anne and the other narrator was extremely distracting and, I can’t help but feel the Author wrote this book in this manner to make her work more accessible to the modern reader.

I wish I could say something good about the contents of this book, but the only saving grace about it for me was the cover image, which I kept returning to look at time and again and this was the reason for my 1 thumb review. I will not be reading anything else by this Author, and find it a hard book to recommend to anyone who enjoys a good historical novel.


Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2015/02/13/review-the-queen-of-subtleties-a-novel-of-...





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The life of Anne Boleyn as told as writings to her daughter Elizabeth intertwined with the views of a confectioner for the king. ( )

Starting out slowly, this is the story of Anne Boleyn, writing to her daughter Elizabeth and telling her life before her execution. Parallel to it is the story of the king's confectioner who is friends with one of the men accused of having committed adultery with Anne. Somewhat slow going, the story was still interesting, esp because I learned about confection making... ( )