Summer Reading: The Last Tudor and Grisham's Camino Island
The Last Tudor, by Philippa Gregory, Touchstone 2017
Best-selling author Philippa Gregory publishes what may be her last Tudor book, after $10M sales for others: The Other Boleyn Girl, Three Sisters, Three Queens, The Taming of the Queen. Survival close to the Tudor throne was iffy - those who powered their way closest to whomever occupied the throne found herself inevitably undercut and in great danger. The list is long, and the name Lady Jane Grey, the "nine Day Queen" is not as well known as the other victims.
When seventeen-year old Jane Grey is persuaded by her father and his buddies to take the crown of England from Mary Tudor, the rightful heir, she finds herself quickly ensconced - a newly-wed! - in the Tower of London! And plunk in the middle of what we now call the Protestant Reformation, a bloody transformation bitter war between all the Pope and various reformers lumped into the category of Protestants. It was a deadly place to be as King Henry moved closer to religious and financial independence.
Mary, of course, quickly orders the beheading of Lady Jane, who stands out as not just another victim of the political/religion battles, but a martyr. Before her trip to the scaffold, however, Jane writes to her two sisters, warnings. "Learn you to die," advises Jane to her younger sister Katherine, who hears the warning and sets what she believes will be a safe course to adulthood. But that safe passage is threatened as the infertile Queen Mary and later the virgin Queen Elizabeth cannot bear the appearance of Katherine's royal heir. Katherine is cast into the Tower of London.
"Farewell, my sister," writes Katherine to the youngest Grey sister, Mary, Tiny in stature, Mary is disregarded by the court and finds it easy to keep secrets while staying out of range of Elizabeth. After seeing her sisters destroyed by the queen, Mary becomes acutely award of her own perilous position as a possible rival, but remains determined to run her own life.
Patricia E. Moody
FORTUNE magazine "Pioneering Woman in Mfg"
IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert
A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers, pemoody@aol.com, patriciaemoody@gmail.com, tricia@patriciaemoody.com,
Camino Island by John Grisham, Doubleday 2017
Camino Island is Grisham's 30th novel, a clever summer read, not too long, but plotted with filled-out characters and enough surprises for the reader to want at least another fifty pages. A gang of thieves plan and execute the nerve-bending heist of five F. Scott Fitzgerald hand-written manuscripts from the vault at Princeton's Firestone Library. The theft cannot remain secret for long, however, and one by one the drafts surface, along with terrible troubles and huge ransom demands.
Enter an assortment of colorful Grisham characters:
Bruce Cable, the proprietor of a still-successful bookstore on Camino Island, Florida. Bruce knows everyone, travels in good literary company, and he also deals in rare books as a "sideline";
Mercer Mann, a young about to be laid off professor and first-time novelist is in a tight spot. With no money and no new story she's angry and bitter, and just a little desperate, overwhelmed with crushing student loan debt;
Elaine, a mysterious figure who connects with Mercer and makes her a deal; Elaine's company also wants the Fitzgerald manuscripts returned to Princeton;
an assortment of ragged novelists, ex-novelists, wannabe novelists, addicted hangers-on from Camino Island. Where rum punches and money meet guns and drills, the reader expects that money wins. And it does, but whose money is the question Grisham leaves us with at this end of this well-constructed thriller. Boston people will recognize parallels to the as-of-yet unsolved Isabella Stuart Gardner museum heist.
Patricia E. Moody
FORTUNE magazine "Pioneering Woman in Mfg"
IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert
A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers, https://sites.google.com/site/blueheronjournal/, tricia@patriciaemoody.com, patriciaemoody@gmail.com, pemoody@aol.com
