The Grandmother’s Tale

Name: The Grandmother’s Tale
Rating: 3.66 (344 reviews)

by Alison Weir Book 3.5 in the Six Tudor Queens series.

First published 2018

Amazon

3.6(344)

Margaret Butler remembers the Boleyn family’s years at Hever Castle while mourning the execution of her granddaughter Anne. Troubled by visions she cannot control and by the sense that Anne’s ghost still inhabits the house, she revisits the ambitions, secrets and warnings that surrounded the family’s rise. The story frames Anne Boleyn’s tragedy through an older woman who has outlived the world she once knew.

Margaret's retrospective voice allows the story to contrast what the Boleyn family hoped for at Hever with what later generations know about Anne's fall. Visions and memory blur certainty, but the emotional focus remains on an older woman trying to understand whether warnings were missed or ambition simply made them impossible to heed. Hever becomes both family home and haunted archive.

Historical Periods

Henrician Reformation1530–1547 CE

Genres

Biographical Fiction Gothic Fiction

Historical people

Anne Boleyn1501–1536 Margaret Butler, Countess of Ormondc. 15th century–1542 Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire1457–1539 Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire1480–1538