Innocent Traitor in The Reading Challenge Group

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Innocent Traitor

Alison Weir

Start date: May 1, 2016

Finish date: May 31, 2016

Discussion: Group Read Archive 2014-16

Why we're reading this: Genre Group Read (Historical Fiction) - May 2016
[close] Genre Group Read (Historical Fiction) - May 2016

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Group Read Archive 2014-16

Genre Group Read (Humour) - December 2016 - You Are Not So Smart
By Allison , Quest Hound · 11 posts · 30 views

last updated Dec 28, 2016 04:05PM

Alternate Group Read (Classics) - December 2016 - Mansfield Park
By Allison , Quest Hound · 5 posts · 18 views

last updated Dec 04, 2016 09:34AM

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What Members Thought

May 02, 2016 Cindy (BKind2Books) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: tbr-challenge, 2016-genre-challenge, spring-bingo, chunkster-challenge

It took me a while to really get into this novel, but it is a wonderful story about one of the more tragic figures of this era. Lady Jane Grey is a bitter disappointment to her parents who wanted a son to carry on their lineage. Jane's mother is a cousin to Henry VIII and schemes with her husband to marry Jane to Edward VI. When his imminent death is rumored, they hatch a convoluted plan, with some of the more scheming members of the nobility, to place Jane upon the English throne. Jane was an u ...more

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Jul 14, 2012 Wendy rated it liked it

Shelves: audiobooks, liked-the-movie, historical-fiction

I've been fascinated by Lady Jane Grey, the 16 year old girl who ruled England for ten days, since I was her age (I won't give away what happened on day eleven, but you can probably guess). My first introduction to Jane was in the 1985 film called "Lady Jane" which features an incredibly young Helena Bonham Carter as Jane and boyish Cary Elwes as Guilford Dudley, her husband by arranged marriage. The film, while a well-written and spellbinding emotional drama, takes some liberties with history. I've been fascinated by Lady Jane Grey, the 16 year old girl who ruled England for ten days, since I was her age (I won't give away what happened on day eleven, but you can probably guess). My first introduction to Jane was in the 1985 film called "Lady Jane" which features an incredibly young Helena Bonham Carter as Jane and boyish Cary Elwes as Guilford Dudley, her husband by arranged marriage. The film, while a well-written and spellbinding emotional drama, takes some liberties with history. As I was curious to read a more complete and historically accurate account, I picked up Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir.

Compared to some of shallow romancey novels in "historical fiction" garb (those are ironic finger quotes) I've read recently, Innocent Traitor excels in its portrait of history, not just by putting people, politics and events into the context of the time, but also by working in plenty of vivid quotidian detail: the clothes, the food, the routines, and the (by our modern standards)very cold family interactions of the nobility. And thanks to this book, I can at last speak confidently about the British politics in the aftermath of Henry VIII's death, and can even tell the Duke of Suffolk apart from Northumberland, and how they are all related (or not) to the late king.

I found the story of Jane's life to be inherently interesting, but sometimes took issue with the way she is revealed in the novel. She is a first-person narrator from a very young age, and yet instead of 5 or 7, she sounds 12 or 16. I was intrigued by the complex relationships between Jane, Mary and Elizabeth, but found Jane's arranged marriage to Guilford Dudley comparatively shallow and one-note. She hates him, and he is a jerk. I'm unclear as to how much historians actually know about their relationship, but I admit I prefer the film's more emotionally complex (if completely fiction--I have no idea if it is or not) version of their relationship to the way this novel dismisses Guilford as a one-note villain. In both the film and the novel, Guilford gives Jane a prayerbook as a gift. We may never know what he meant in this gesture, but the fact that it feels so strange and out of character for Guilford in the novel suggests (to me) that there must be more to them than just...cruelty and hate.

This is a slow, dense novel packed with history...and if you like that sort of thing, you'll probably enjoy it. If your attention span doesn't hold for 500 pages (or even if it does) check out the film! ...more

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May 07, 2011 Elle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction

I really liked this one. Renewed my faith in historical fiction and fueled my obsession with the English monarchy. I will definitely be reading more of her books.

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