Laurien Gardner The Spanish Bride

The Spanish Bride

Laurien Gardner

Jove, Nov 2005, $6.99, 304 pp.

ISBN: 0515140279

In 1501 teenage Princess Catherine of Aragon, accompanied by a small retinue, to include her lady in waiting Estrella de Montoya, arrives in England to marry King Henry VIII. The bright Catherine looks forward to her wedding day with the courageous monarch. By 1527, when she fails to produce the male heir, Henry does the unthinkable in the eyes of God and the law; he divorces his Spanish first wife to wed Anne Boleyn, though his first wife does everything to stop him from tossing her aside.

This is an intriguing historical biographical fiction novel, that rotates between the arrival and early happy days of the royal marriage, to the bleak final moments when the King casts his foreign spouse, who desperately tries everything to save her marriage and regain her spouse's love, aside for someone else. The storyline is seen through the eyes of the loyal Estrella, who stands by her Queen though that risks the ire of Henry. By doing this, Laurien Gardner paints Catherine as an intelligent caring woman, who suffers the humiliating stigmatism of divorce, unheard of by her religion. English historical readers will treasure this deep look at Henry's first wife, with his second coming up next.

Harriet Klausner