Thanks to the success of screen adaptations of her novels, including The Other Boleyn Girl and The White Queen, you probably don’t even need to be an avid reader to be aware of Philippa Gregory. However, the popular historical fiction writer’s novels are worth checking out in their own right – and all of the following memorable adventures are available for purchase through iBooks.
While you’ve probably seen the 2008 film adaptation starring Eric Bana as sixteenth century English king Henry VIII, Natalie Portman as his well-known second wife Anne Boleyn and Scarlett Johansson as her sister Mary, the novel was originally published seven years earlier. It follows Henry’s urgent mission to secure a male heir for his throne, though it isn’t the most historically accurate account…
Queen Elizabeth is widely known as “the Virgin Queen”, having never once married during her lifetime. However, Robert Dudley, one of the queen’s favorites for decades, is often thought to have come closest to tying the knot with her – and, in The Virgin’s Lover, Gregory builds upon this by speculating that… well, you’ll have to read the book to find out. Let’s just say that, if you like a compelling conspiracy theory, you are unlikely to be disappointed by the one furthered here.
Three years ago, you might have caught the historical drama series The White Queen which aired then on Starz. That series followed the life of Elizabeth Woodville, played by Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation star Rebecca Ferguson, as her husband Edward IV lost his crown, regained it, and then left the throne to his son, Edward V. This period of fifteenth century English history is very much what the book The White Queen focuses on, too – check it out if you loved the TV series.
Three Sisters, Three Queens (2016)
Gregory’s latest novel puts the spotlight – or, to use a more apt phrase for a story set in the sixteenth century, candlelight – on three women who not only were close friends, but became queens of different countries. Margaret Tudor, a daughter of Henry VII, married James IV of Scotland; Mary Tudor, another daughter of Henry VII, wed Louis XII of France; and Catherine of Aragon became the wife of Henry VIII of England.
However, as much as we love Philippa Gregory, there’s plenty of intriguing historical fiction from other writers to get stuck into. It’d be tricky for us to single out especially riveting novels – however, with our keen interest in the period of the Napoleonic Wars, we’d definitely advise Michelle Moran’s The Second Empress. It’s about Napoleon’s second wife Marie Louise and gives a good idea of what Gregory might produce if she ever turned her attention to the time of the first Emperor of the French.
