I found this book to be, for the most part, poorly written, historically inaccurate, and boring –and if this wasn't Book 28 just two weeks from the beginning of the new year, I would have chucked it through the window somewhere in the middle. So I'm a little bit pissed at Mademoiselle Boleyn because I felt like I had to keep reading it, and I was terribly impatient to just be done with it.When I started this book, I asked myself, Why do I keep reading these Tudor histories? I love the Tudors, am obsessed to be honest, but the same thing keeps happening over and over again – which it should, considering the events are historical record. But it makes for repititious reading; the historical details are scarce, especially when it comes to Henry's wives, so I find that even the tone and the scenarios tend to be the same from book to book. Over time, it gets to be boring...which is probably why I haven't read a book on the Tudors in, like, 9 months.
So at first, I got excited by Mademoiselle Boleyn – something different! The book focuses on Anne's upbringing in foreign courts, and ends where the other books generally start. But my enthusiasm dimmed when I realized why writers don't write about Anne's upbringing: We know little about it. Robin Maxwell essentially made this book up – she took a real person, put her in the correct location (Francois I's court), and then went hog wild on the details. And that really bugged me – I know that this is a novel, but still, I think history owes Anne Boleyn more than that. She was a real person and she deserves our respect – she certainly deserves more than the author's lewd imaginings where, for example, Anne catches her sister in an orgy.
But the book really lost my interest when Maxwell decided to make Anne Boleyn and Leonardo da Vinci the best of friends. It's not just unlikely; it's stupid. In the Readers Guide, Maxwell writes in her defense: "This is a perfect literary amalgam of a period that is chock-full of holes, an extrapolation of known facts, and a leap of imagination. I reasoned that the friendship could have happened, and there is no evidence against it." Sure, Francois' sister Marguerite never wrote in her diary, "Oh, mon dieu, I can hardly believe that Anne and Leonardo haven't struck up a friendship! Why ever not?" But generally speaking, you don't often find "evidence" against things that never happened. People don't tend to dwell on the thousands of things that could have been, but weren't.
In terms of historical accuracy, I'd have to give this book a big fail. While of course Anne is the protagonist, and thus is the focus of the book, I felt that Maxwell inaccurately enlarged Anne's importance at the French court. In truth, Anne was a minor personage until she caught Henry VIII's eye. I guess I don't see the point of making her the star of the French court when she wasn't; historical fiction is still supposed to have some basis in history. In order to increase the tension of the book, Maxwell has everything come together at the Field of Cloth of Gold, a two-plus-week extravaganza where Henry and Francois meet in friendship in 1520. Here, in the book, Anne meets her true love Henry Percy and Mary Boleyn catches Henry VIII's eye; about 20 pages later, the book ends with Anne's return to England, and she catches Henry VIII's eye on Dover Beach. While all of these events did indeed happen, none of them happened at these places or points in time. They've been bunched together to help the novel out. There's not that much of a historical record, but I don't see the point of distorting what there is. If you want to create the secret life of Anne Boleyn based on your wild imaginings, fine, but don't claim that your work is a researched piece of likely history (which is what the Readers Guide is all about). It seriously just bugged.
Anyway, I'm done venting. I've moved on to the next book, Sleeping Tiger by Rosamunde Pilcher. I've read it multiple times but not for several years; I've lately been thinking about going abroad for an extended period of time, so a book about escaping abroad seemed appropriate. :)
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