Six of
One, a Tudor Riff
JoAnn
Spears
Genre:
Historical fiction, satire, women's fiction, chick lit, alternative
history, historical fantasy
ASIN:
B006OPKZE6
Number of pages: 304
Word Count: 79,000
Book
Description:
“Six of One” is the ultimate ‘girls’
night in’…with the six wives of Henry VIII. It’s the most fun you can have with
your nightdress on! Join Dolly, the
Tudor-obsessed heroine of “Six of One”, on a Yellow Brick Road journey to the
alternate reality of an all-girl Tudor court.
It all begins when Dolly loses
consciousness on the eve of her marriage to the six-times- divorced Harry. She awakens in the company of the Tudor women
she’s studied all her life. They have a mission to accomplish, and Dolly may be
just the girl who can help them do it.
As a warm-up to her life-changing
interview with the six wives of Henry VIII, Dolly gets to dish with lots of the
other fascinating females of the Tudor era. She learns things she never guessed
about the Princes in the Tower from their sister, Elizabeth of York…Henry
VIII’s mom. She talks sex with Henry’s
sisters and scholarship with his daughters. She even gossips with the help,
since Kat Ashley and Bess of Hardwicke are among the ladies on hand.
Of course the heart of the story is in
Dolly’s interview with the six wives of Henry VIII. It turns out there’s
something to each of the wives’ stories that’s been held back all this
time. You won’t believe what really
happened…or will you?
“Six of One” offers no tragedy, no
excuses, and no apologies. It does have lots of broad humor, not to mention
tons of puns. And—for a change—a happy ending
Excerpt
from “Six of One”: Chapter Nineteen, Of Real Estate Celestial and Terrestrial
It was hard to imagine the woman who was
facing me at any kind of rest at all. Hers was not the tremulousness that
enervated Jane; the edginess that snapped, crackled, and popped from Elizabeth;
or the self-fueled neurosis of Arabella. This woman radiated energy that was
pure, simple, boundless, and efficient—it was as if she had a nuclear reactor
under her farthingale.
“What, still in your nightdress, Dolly?
You are quite the slugabed!” the woman said. “Perhaps I am a slugabed, but I’m
very properly attired for a honeymoon, don’t you think?” I asked, in what I
hoped was a roguish manner. (You have to be very careful with roguish when you
are over forty.)
“I should say that you are, with nothing
but a nightdress on!” the woman answered. “Most of our guests request panties
as soon as they get here. Of course, I don’t feel the need for them, myself.”
At first, I admired how well this woman did roguish, but then I remembered that
panties did not hit the fashion scene until well after the Elizabethan era.
“And I notice that you are still fixed on
that honeymoon with your Harry, Dolly. You won’t be, once the wives have
declaimed themselves. Or perhaps you will be. I have learned the hard way never
to underestimate human frailty or human stupidity. After all, we women of the
court are all still here, aren’t we? Each of the guests we have entertained
here over the centuries was an opportunity, a squandered opportunity. Six
wives! You would think that between them, or should I say amongst them, they
could get it right.”
I would have cast my vote for amongst,
but was unable to get a word in edgewise.
“Six fools!” the woman continued. “Like
so many cats in a sack! Squalling, clawing, fur flying, wound licking, but not
one iota of effectual sense! So here they stay. Here we stay.”
I had learned from the younger Tudor
contingent what the mission of the women here was. What they hadn’t told me was
exactly how or why the ladies who were here came to be here, and it was
something I wanted to know. I was sure it would be useful information to have.
It might keep me from putting my foot in my mouth and spare the bedpost any
more abuse because of my blunders. And if the six wives were as cantankerous as
this woman claimed they were, it might spare me some abuse as well.
“There’s not much any of them can tell
you about success at matrimony; you ought to listen to me, Dolly, dear,” she
went on. “I’ve had four husbands: one or two missteps along the way, but
success overall and no regrets. My head stayed on my shoulders, and my feet
stayed squarely on the ground—of which I had plenty; I saw to that.”
Does she mean plenty of feet or plenty of
ground? I wondered. On the other hand, perhaps she meant plenty of feet of
ground. Maybe she meant plenty of square feet, but that would surely have made
purchasing shoes difficult. A woman as enterprising as this one seemed to be
probably dealt more in acres, if not miles, than square feet, and the silken
espadrilles that peeked out from beneath her gown appeared to house well-shaped
feet. The woman above the feet was likewise well-shaped and not at all
unattractive—if you like the spiky type.
“I needed the ground, you see, for my
building,” she explained. “Bricks and mortar, my dear, bricks and mortar—the
best insurance for a woman’s security and a woman’s standing. A woman needs a
place to keep her people and her possessions safe and secure under her weather
eye.”
Under her weather thumb is more like it,
I thought. This building fool could only be Bess of Hardwicke, a woman whose
name is seldom seen in print without the word “redoubtable” in front of it. I
wondered if anyone ever called her redoubtable to her face. I redoubted it.
Review: Don't come into this looking for a deep, thoughtful read. It isn't that. It is silly and fun and a great read for those of us that like to geek out on Tudor history.
Dolly is a history professor who concentrates on The Tudors! She's getting married to a Harry, who has been married 6 times before..Wait doesn't that sound like a song too...
Then something happens at her bachelorette party...and that's when all the fun ensues.
I absolutely adored this book. It was a quick fun read..a little bit like A Christmas Carol only with Henry VIII's wives and some of the other women that were important to him.
Each of Henry's wives are sharing a secret with Dolly about themselves. These secrets will really get you giggling. Some are realistic, some aren't so much, but they all make for a fun read.
I love how Dolly's life and her soon to be husband Harry's life parallel's Henry's. The only thing about Dolly that I wasn't too keen on were her rhymes! But even that endears her to you after awhile.
I absolutely adored this book. It was a quick fun read..a little bit like A Christmas Carol only with Henry VIII's wives and some of the other women that were important to him.
Each of Henry's wives are sharing a secret with Dolly about themselves. These secrets will really get you giggling. Some are realistic, some aren't so much, but they all make for a fun read.
I love how Dolly's life and her soon to be husband Harry's life parallel's Henry's. The only thing about Dolly that I wasn't too keen on were her rhymes! But even that endears her to you after awhile.
It is a pretty quick read and totally fun for anyone that likes a quirky read and this particular period in time.
Rating: 5 flowers
About the
Author:
JoAnn Spears spent a lot of time trying
to figure out whether she wanted to major in English or History in
college. Life stepped in, and she wound
up with a Master’s Degree in Nursing instead.
A twenty-five year nursing career didn’t extinguish that early interest
in books and history. It did however stoke a decidedly gallows sense of humor.
The story of the six wives of Henry VIII
was JoAnn’s favorite piece of history.
She read the classic variations and the feminist variations, the tragic
spins and the vindicating spins. She
witnessed the success of the pop culture, soft-core Tudor offerings of recent
vintage. It occurred to her that the one thing that hadn’t been brought to a
full length novel about the Tudors was a gallows sense of humor. The Tudors
certainly qualified for it, and JoAnn had plenty to spare.
The first ‘real’ book JoAnn ever read was
“The Wizard of Oz”. She returned to the
Yellow Brick Road for inspiration for a new kind of Tudor novel, and “Six of
One” was born.
“Six of One” was begun in JoAnn’s native
New Jersey. It was wrapped up in her new Smoky Mountain home in northeast
Tennessee, where she is pursuing a second career as a writer. She has, however,
obtained a Tennessee nursing license because a) you never stop being a nurse
and b) her son Bill thinks she should be sensible and not quit her day job.
While “Six of One” is a different kind of
historical fiction novel, JoAnn is a downright stereotypical lady author. She admits to all of the cats, flower beds,
needlework, and obsessive devotion to Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott that
you’d expect.
Twitter:
@joannspearsrn
1 comments:
So glad you enjoyed 'Six of One'!
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