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THE TEMPTATION OF ELIZABETH TUDOR

Name: THE TEMPTATION OF ELIZABETH TUDOR
Author: Elizabeth Norton
ISBN: 978-1-60598-948-8

ELIZABETH I, THOMAS SEYMOUR, AND THE MAKING OF A VIRGIN QUEEN

by Elizabeth Norton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 15, 2016

Juicy royal history that may or may not be true. Either way, the story of Thomas’ comeuppance and Elizabeth’s reaction makes...

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Tudor historian Norton (The Tudor Miscellany, 2014, etc.) looks at Henry VIII’s daughter and widow, but the real story here is Thomas Seymour.

Thomas was the brother of Henry’s third wife, Jane. As uncle to the king, he felt he should have a much more important place, both in the Parliament and in the young king’s care. Machinations were the key to just about everything during the reign of the Tudors; spying, plotting, and backstabbing were the norm. Thomas, who had wooed Catherine Parr before she married Henry, quickly picked up their romance when she was widowed; in fact, they were married just over a month after the king’s death. Thomas hoped his marriage might give him more authority as he sought the governance of the young king, his wife’s stepson. His brother Edward gained increasing amounts of power and made him Lord High Admiral as a concession. Before Parr, he had sued for the hands of both Elizabeth and Mary Tudor, both in the line of succession. Elizabeth’s closest attendant, Katherine Ashley, inexplicably decided that the teenager no longer needed a protective woman sleeping near her bed. That left Elizabeth exposed to Thomas’ morning ritual of entering half-dressed and playing a little “slap and tickle” with the future queen. Whether Elizabeth enjoyed it or whether Catherine might even have cooperated in the game are left to the imagination. “When she was a teenager,” writes the author, “there was one man who had caught her fancy enough to tempt her to abandon herself to him. The Virgin Queen was born out of the ashes of his fall.” Regardless, Catherine, six months pregnant, caught the couple in an embrace and sent Elizabeth packing. The author tells of rumors of Elizabeth’s “illness” that summer, hinting at pregnancy.

Juicy royal history that may or may not be true. Either way, the story of Thomas’ comeuppance and Elizabeth’s reaction makes for a quick, enjoyable read.

Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-60598-948-8

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Pegasus

Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015

Categories:

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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NIGHT

by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

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Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.