Book review: My Royal Story: Henry VIII's Wives by Alison Prince

My Royal Story: Henry VIII's Wives by Alison Prince (Published by Scholastic UK, March 7, 2011)

This book tells the story of Henry VIII's wives through the diary of a fictional young girl, Beatrice Townhill, during the years 1536 to 1548. Beatrice begins writing in her diary when she is ten years old. Her father is the king's huntsman, so as a special birthday present she is taken to court to meet Henry and his new wife, Jane Seymour. This book is also a a sequel to the author's previous books in the My Story series, about ladies in waiting to Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, as Beatrice meets Eva and her daughter, Elinor, the main characters from those books, and learns about Catherine and Anne by reading their own diaries from when they were young girls at court.

After Jane Seymour dies giving birth to a son, Henry decides to marry again, and Beatrice, who is now old enough, is chosen to be a lady-in-waiting at court. Over the years, she serves as a lady-in-waiting to his last three wives, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard, and Katherine Parr. She also grows up, falls in love, marries, and has children of her own.

This was the longest book from the My Story series and also one of my favorites, as I love reading historical fiction set during the Tudor era. Although I have enjoyed all the books I have read from the series, often I wished for them to be longer and more detailed. So I am happy that for this book, the author was allowed to write it to be much longer than the others in the series, given that it is set over twelve years and covers quite a lot of history.