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Historical The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory $15.00 / Simon & Schuster / 2001 The Other Boleyn Girl is a historical novel told from the point of view of Mary Carey, the sister of Anne Boleyn, who was Henry VIII's lover before Anne. The story takes place from 1521 to Anne's death in 1536 and recounts the mad ambition of the Boleyn family. Much of the early part of the book describes Boleyn family meetings where her father, brother, and Uncle Thomas Howard make plans to use Mary and then Anne as pawns to further their own ambitions for rank and wealth. They are depicted calculating what might happen if Mary or Anne bore the king a male heir and planning how to keep the king's interest piqued. The book is written in a spare, modern style and readers may disagree about whether that is effective, especially in the modernity of the dialog. Scenes are rarely described in detail, and it is a little dialog-heavy, giving the feeling that the book was written with the intention of being adapted for the screen. (Interestingly, in 2003, the BBC did film an adaptation of the book for British television.) The Other Boleyn Girl also has some R-rated moments and is, at times, a little lurid. Since Anne's demise at the hand of the axe is well known, the only suspense in this novel is whether Mary's life will end happily with the low-ranking husband whom she eventually marries in secret to avoid the disapproval of her ambitious family. The first-person narration also constricts the story (as characters can only appear if the narrator encounters them). Additionally, Thomas Wolsey and Thomas More are rarely discussed, and when they are, they are not described in much detail. Instead, the story focuses on the tensions between the two sisters, and the emotional cost of courtly ambition. Although Gregory does a good job of depicting the increasing strain of the precariousness of life at court, this is a historical novel for people who like their fictio modern. —Amy Crider

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