BOOK REVIEW: HISTORICAL FICTION
Jane Boleyn is the subject of Phillippa Gregory's new work of historical fiction about the Tudor era in in England.
BOLEYN TRAITOR
by Philippa Gregory
Published by William Morrow (October 14, 2025)
Hardcover $18.04
Audiobook $14.99
Reviewed by Penny A Parrish
Lovers of historical fiction, particularly the Tudor period in England, will be familiar with this author. In 2008’s The Other Boleyn Girl, the author focuses on Mary, Anne Boleyn’s sister. In her new book, the story is about Jane Boleyn, who was married to Anne’s brother George. Jane was in the court of the first wife of Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon (they were married 24 years). When she could not give him a son, he had the marriage annulled and married Anne Boleyn. That story, and these figures, provide the writer with 500 pages of intrigue.
Anne does give birth, but it is to a daughter (later Elizabeth I). Accused of infidelity (including with her brother George), they are both beheaded. Jane is left without a husband, and supposedly without a friend. But somehow she remains in the court – as lady-in-waiting to Henry’s third wife (Jane Seymour), Henry’s fourth wife (Anne of Cleves) and Henry’s fifth wife (Kathryn Howard). By the time Henry weds his sixth and final wife, Jane has literally lost her head.
The book is long, but full of interesting details about palace politics, gowns, jewels, court dances, hunts and jousts with minions fawning over the increasingly fat and unhealthy king (a serious leg wound renders him almost immobile and impotent). Jane is more than a lady-in-waiting: she is a spy for Thomas Cromwell (until he too is decapitated) and then for her Uncle, the 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Jane and Cromwell share a love of knowledge, reading and language. He is the only one she can share an intelligent conversation with, and when he is gone, Jane must find ways to walk the Tudor tightrope without him.
The novel gives the reader deep insight into each of the queens. The teenage Kathryn Howard is Jane’s undoing, as she helps the girl spend time with a young man, Thomas Culpeper, with whom she has fallen in love. The relationship is a far cry from that she has with Henry, who is old enough to be her grandfather. You cannot help but feel sorry for the uneducated, pretty but silly girl who pays the price for her infidelity. As does Jane.
In her other books, and in most historical reports, Jane Boleyn is portrayed in a negative light, causing the death of her own husband and Anne Boleyn (among others). In this book, Gregory takes a completely different and somewhat sympathetic twist and gives us a woman who does what she has to do to survive in the treachery of the reign of Henry VIII.
Penny A Parrish is a local writer and photographer. View her pictures.
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