FIRST CHAPTERS -- PART II

I admit it. I bit off more than I could chew. I originally had thirteen books planned for this, but my brain fried at eight. Not to mention that my TBR list didn't get any shorter at all, because every book looked good! Don't you just hate when that happens?

Just a note: Raidergirl3 at An Adventure In Reading made me laugh yesterday with her post about joining challenges, and suggested one of her own. Sign me up! Wait! I think I'm already in that one. . . :-)

Anyway, here are two more First Chapters for those who are curious:



THE SIXTH WIFE by Suzannah Dunn

Yippee! Another story of Katherine Parr, this one told by her best friend, Catherine, Duchess of Suffolk. The book begins after Henry VIII's death. In the first chapter, Katherine is also dead and her last husband, Thomas Seymour, is in big trouble. I don't know what the trouble is, but I do know that Thomas is not a very popular guy. The writing appears to be a bit too modern for the time period, but I admit that I'm pretty much dying to know what the big dilemma is that allegedly cost Katherine her life. I would like to read this back-to-back with The Last Wife of Henry VIII: A Novel and compare them.





PORTRAIT OF AN UNKNOWN WOMAN by Vanora Bennett

More first-person, Tudor era fiction, however this one is not about one of the Tudors. It centers around members of the family of Sir Thomas More and artist Hans Holbein. In the first chapter, we are introduced to the family and our narrator, Meg Giggs, More's adopted daughter, and told of Meg's secret love for her former tutor John Clement. We witness the arrival of Master Hans, commissioned to paint a portrait of the More family. And I was hopelessly drawn in by the splendid writing! Meg's family life with the Mores is so vividly illustrated that I felt I was reading a personal diary. I will be making room for this one in the Master Plan.

Happy Reading, Everyone!
Lezlie