Mary, Bloody Mary (Young Royals Books) Book

Teen fans of the movie Elizabeth will be fascinated with the pomp and sinister intrigue of Mary, Bloody Mary, an engrossing story about the teen years of Mary Tudor, half sister to Queen Elizabeth and daughter to Henry VIII. As a baby, Mary was adored by her father, who carried her around on his shoulder and displayed her for the court to admire. But as his marriage with her mother, Catherine of Aragon, waned for lack of a male heir, Henry began an affair with the beautiful Anne Boleyn. Mary was convinced that Anne was a witch. Didn't everyone know she had a sixth finger? And wasn't it Anne who persuaded Henry to declare his first marriage invalid (rendering Mary a bastard)? As the king grows ever colder, Mary is banished to a distant house, forbidden from seeing her mother, left to wear rags, and finally--at Anne's bidding--summoned back to court to be a servant to her baby half sister Elizabeth. Once there, Mary lives in constant dread that she will be poisoned or sent to the executioner's block in one of her father's rages. By the time Anne Boleyn herself is beheaded, Henry's first daughter has become the bitter and angry woman who was to be known as Bloody Queen Mary for her savage religious genocide. Carolyn Meyer, long acclaimed for her teen fiction (Drummers of Jericho), accurately captures the glitter and grandeur as well as the brutality of this fascinating period in history. (Ages 10 to 16) --Patty Campbell