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The Confession of Katherine Howard
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Review
'Dunn gives the story a vivid, contemporary feel, and Katherine's conversations with her closest friend, Cathryn Tilney, are gossipy and intimate, full of sly innuendo and confidences.' Marie Claire
'Those who have fallen in love with the drama of the Tudor period will devour the Confession of Katherine Howard…an insightful foray into the life of one of Henry VIII's most misunderstood yet fascinating wives.' Scottish Sunday Herald
‘Gripping, a pageturner, a thriller … Dunn’s book has an incisive insight into how manipulative people work.’ Dublin Evening Herald
Product Description
This summer won’t be the first time Queen Katherine has come to the throne…
When twelve-year-old Katherine Howard comes to live in the Duchess of Norfolk's household, poor relation Cat Tilney is deeply suspicious. The two girls couldn't be more different: Cat, watchful and ambitious; Katherine, interested only in clothes and boys. Their companions are in thrall to Katherine, but it's Cat in whom Katherine confides and, despite herself, Cat is drawn to her. Summoned to court at seventeen, Katherine leaves Cat in the company of her ex-lover, Francis, and the two begin their own, much more serious, love affair.
Within months, the king has set aside his Dutch wife Anne for Katherine. The future seems assured for the new queen and her maid-in-waiting, although Cat would feel more confident if Katherine hadn't embarked on an affair with one of the king's favoured attendants, Thomas Culpeper.
However, for a blissful year and a half, it seems that Katherine can have everything she wants. But then allegations are made about her girlhood love affairs. Desperately frightened, Katherine recounts a version of events which implicates Francis but which Cat knows to be a lie. With Francis in the Tower, Cat alone knows the whole truth of Queen Katherine Howard – but if she tells, Katherine will die.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I can sometimes be difficult to find a fresh writer to put on your 'favourite' list - but I have with Suzannah Dunn. I love this book so much I've now bought her earlier works: on Anne Boleyn (The Queen of Subtleties); Catherine Parr (The Sixth Wife); and Mary I (The Queen's Sorrow). For me, Suzannah is now right up there with Phillippa Gregory and Alison Weir. Although lots has been written about Katherine Howard, I can honestly couldn't put down 'The Confession'. The familiar story is told here with a renewed vigour, originality and suspense. A great book!
54 of 57 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
The story of the teenage Katherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, has been told numerous times in fact and in fiction but rarely so compellingly or with such style as in Susannah Dunn's new novel. The reader is plunged straight into the middle of the story, just days before Katherine Howard's fall from grace, and then taken back to Katherine's early years at the Duchess of Norfolk's house.
Told in the first person by Cat Tilney (a lady-in-waiting and childhood friend of Katherine's) we are told about their time together as teenagers where, with other girls, they were supposed to be learning to be ladies but were learning more about boys than anything else in the lax and slipshod Duchess' residence.
The story alternates between the claustrophobic Tudor court and the carefree life in the Duchess' house. This may sound confusing but the switch over between the past and present are always smooth and never jar on the reader.
Katherine Howard is portrayed as more knowing than I would have thought and she's a difficult character to warm to at times but the reader is always reminded of her youth, how little she really knew of the pitiless and vindictive Tudor court. Henry VIII is never really portrayed only glimpsed as a massive, monstrous and god-like figure who can destroy lives from a distance.
Susannah Dunn also tells a love story as the narrator falls in love with Francis Dereham only to have it all fall apart around her. It is a stunning story of betrayal, passion, innocence and fear packed with emotion and incident. Beautifully told, I was hooked until the last page.
Told in the first person by Cat Tilney (a lady-in-waiting and childhood friend of Katherine's) we are told about their time together as teenagers where, with other girls, they were supposed to be learning to be ladies but were learning more about boys than anything else in the lax and slipshod Duchess' residence.
The story alternates between the claustrophobic Tudor court and the carefree life in the Duchess' house. This may sound confusing but the switch over between the past and present are always smooth and never jar on the reader.
Katherine Howard is portrayed as more knowing than I would have thought and she's a difficult character to warm to at times but the reader is always reminded of her youth, how little she really knew of the pitiless and vindictive Tudor court. Henry VIII is never really portrayed only glimpsed as a massive, monstrous and god-like figure who can destroy lives from a distance.
Susannah Dunn also tells a love story as the narrator falls in love with Francis Dereham only to have it all fall apart around her. It is a stunning story of betrayal, passion, innocence and fear packed with emotion and incident. Beautifully told, I was hooked until the last page.
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
This is a wonderfully-engaging re-telling of the story of Katherine Howard, Henry VIII's fifth wife, and manages to make a familiar tale genuinely fresh again. Set very much around a female court and household this is a story about female bodies, female duplicity and female sexuality.
Dunn, I think wisely, chooses not to have the narrative told by Katherine herself but, instead, by her girlhood friend and lady-in-waiting Cat Tilney. This allows her to maintain Katherine's own air of slightly enigmatic charisma and keeps us close to her without allowing us into Katherine's own head.
I particularly liked the way this doesn't portray Tudor women as closet modern-day women, as so many historical books do, always complaining about their lack of education and inability to choose their own husbands - something which no genuine C16th women do from the historical sources. Instead we see girls excited by the idea of arranged marriage because it gives them their own place at the head of the household. At the same time, women's ability to manage 'romance' as something outside of marriage, always problematic, is explored.
This Katherine is not particularly intelligent (but definitely not stupid either), not particularly pretty but still a powerful character in her self-belief and self-sufficiency, and pure inability to understand that anything can destroy her.
The narrative is split between long sections set in the present of the investigation against Katherine, and the past of her girlhood. But because the sections are long, the narrative avoids the choppy feel of similar structures and gives us time to settle into the story.
There are no 'good' and 'bad' characters in this book, it's far more nuanced than that. And the big events of the period tend to happen off-stage so that we're not distracted by them.
I'm usually very wary of fiction set in the Tudor period as it's a field that I work in but this is one of the best novels about it that I've read, that genuinely stands up as a novel in its own right, not just a series of familiar historical set-pieces strung together. Excellent.
Dunn, I think wisely, chooses not to have the narrative told by Katherine herself but, instead, by her girlhood friend and lady-in-waiting Cat Tilney. This allows her to maintain Katherine's own air of slightly enigmatic charisma and keeps us close to her without allowing us into Katherine's own head.
I particularly liked the way this doesn't portray Tudor women as closet modern-day women, as so many historical books do, always complaining about their lack of education and inability to choose their own husbands - something which no genuine C16th women do from the historical sources. Instead we see girls excited by the idea of arranged marriage because it gives them their own place at the head of the household. At the same time, women's ability to manage 'romance' as something outside of marriage, always problematic, is explored.
This Katherine is not particularly intelligent (but definitely not stupid either), not particularly pretty but still a powerful character in her self-belief and self-sufficiency, and pure inability to understand that anything can destroy her.
The narrative is split between long sections set in the present of the investigation against Katherine, and the past of her girlhood. But because the sections are long, the narrative avoids the choppy feel of similar structures and gives us time to settle into the story.
There are no 'good' and 'bad' characters in this book, it's far more nuanced than that. And the big events of the period tend to happen off-stage so that we're not distracted by them.
I'm usually very wary of fiction set in the Tudor period as it's a field that I work in but this is one of the best novels about it that I've read, that genuinely stands up as a novel in its own right, not just a series of familiar historical set-pieces strung together. Excellent.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
More confident with the novel form than similar writers
This isn't a history, but it is a good historical novel, well written and full of feeling for the characters caught up in a court they fail to understand. Read more
Published 11 days ago by Forester
The Confessions Of Katherine Howard
A totally compelling story written in the eyes of "Cat", Katherine Howards best friend. Quite raunchy in parts and brilliantly written. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Sara
Still some suspense wrung from a well-known story
I have read so much about this era, & despite of course knowing the final outcome, I still got very caught up in the story told from this viewpoint.
Published 1 month ago by OhErm
Tragic tale of a naive young girl
Written in two parts which overlap, the story is told from the point of view of Katherine's best friend and jumps back forth from their days as trainee ladies in waiting to the... Read more
Published 3 months ago by J. Lyne
Excellent & educational!
I really enjoyed this book. it is written from the perspective of kate's best friend, cat. initially cat doesn't actually like kate. Read more
Published 4 months ago by 2mummies
Very poor...
I couldn't finish this book. When I read a historical novel, I expect to see some attempt at accuracy of events and culture, and while this may have got it okay with the events,... Read more
Published 7 months ago by sarahc
Disappointing and very forgettable
As a keen reader of history, I am usually very dubious of historical novels - and with good reason after having read this drivel. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Apocalyptic Queen
post
having lost my book in the post it was replaced,so after a wait i had what i ordered.should the first book arrive iwill return it unopened
Published 8 months ago by nosher
Good Read!
I confess that I'm not the best at reading historical novels mainly due to the fact that I get lost in the detail!! Read more
Published 8 months ago by JoMog
Trashy with little factual information
As with the queens sorrow there is very little factual information and a lot of sex in this book. I can forgive it here although making katherine sex mad is a bit of a cop out... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Ms. C. R. Hurley
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