Review: The Pleasure Palace by Kate Emerson

Title: The Pleasure Palace
Author: Kate Emerson
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2009
Pages: 400

Rating: 2 out of 10

From beginning to end, this was a fluffy book that made for painful reading.

It is the story of Jane Popyncourt, who flees 1500's France to England with her mother at a young age. There, she does her best to blend into the royal court of King Henry VIII.

I was bored by the hollow characters here, especially Jane herself. Her thoughts seemed so wooden and scripted.
The writing was abrupt and hurried through, certain things struck me as a bit too unrealistic, and there were a few plot points that were never really tied up.
The basis of the story, which has Jane's mother fleeing her country, is never fully explained.

For a few chapters, Jane spends a great deal of pages coming up with an involved, elaborate plan to get the king alone in order to speak with him privately. However, this never made much sense to me because Jane seems to have a good relationship with the king, and sees him as often as she wishes. Surely she could simply ask to speak to him privately, or lower her voice? But no. Instead, she hatches a scheme to pretend-seduce the king, culminating in his being in his bedroom with her and about to undress her (is that alone enough?). At this moment, Jane tells him that actually, there will be no sex. In fact, quite the opposite - she wants him to do a favor for her. Considering the fact that Henry VIII was known for being so lusty and prone to tantrums (not to mention being a man), I found it very suspicious that he accepts this bewildering changing of the tides with little more than a twinge of disappointment. And to make everything even worse, Jane's secret request isn't even secretive. It wouldn't have mattered if she had asked the King in public after all. The whole thing was ridiculous.

The above paragraph is simply one example of writing that often made no sense. A smaller thing would be that Jane recognizes her brother immediately after not seeing him since she was 9 (I cannot remember how old she was at the time, but most likely around 20), and doesn't even make that big of a deal of their reunion.
Jane is always being described as innocent and good and child-like, though she does take a lover, which would almost certainly have lost her these titles in her day and age. The King himself calls her "child" when she is in her 30's, and not as a pet name. Um...
I was annoyed at Jane constantly referring to her romantic interest, Guy, as if it was the first time the reader was hearing of him. Hundreds of pages after we first meet Guy, she is still saying "I saw his brother, Guy..." or "I say a young man named Guy Dunois walking by..." Alright, we know who he is now!

I cannot think of anything I enjoyed about this poorly written book.

Review: The Tudor Secret by C.W. Gortner

Title: The Tudor Secret
Author: C.W. Gortner
Genre: Historical Mystery
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: 2011
Pages: 352

Rating: 4 out of 10

In 1553 England, Brendan Prescott is sent to serve the Dudley family and act as squire to Robert Dudley. Nearly as soon as he arrives in London, he is swept into a swirl of politics and intrigue in a royal court whose young monarch, the fading Edward VI, lies on his deathbed. Vying for the throne are Jane Grey and the two Tudor daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, and each of them have supporters and enemies. Brendan is first asked to spy for Robert, and then to double-spy for William Cecil, a powerful name at court and an ally of Elizabeth's.

I had resolved just a few weeks ago to take a break from Tudor England, since I feel the topic has been more than exhausted in today's popular historical fiction. But, when I saw this one on the Early Reviewer's page, I was drawn in by the beautiful cover and the idea of spies and secret identities and double-crossing. It sounds marvelous, but unfortunately the best thing about this book was the cover.

Not that it was entirely awful, but I can't think of anything in particular that was good about it.

I couldn't bring myself to be all that interested in any of the characters, especially the main character Brendan. The author wastes no time getting to the action - skipping any chance we had of getting even a good introduction. Brendan seemed silly to me - he's the type who will rustle bushes loudly while "spying," (and he does - more than once). He boldly confronts powerful nobility and royalty in some scenes, but in others, is terrified to even speak to someone in a position of power.
Robert Dudley is cast as "bad," and the author makes no attempt to explore his character. I personally think him a very interesting historical figure, but the author tells us all about how Robert used to beat up Brendan when they were kids, and apparently he has still remained the cruel, more or less stupid bully.

I thought it was suspiciously convenient that Brendan is able to meet with such high nobility in only the first few nights he is at court, and how as soon as Robert asks him to deliver something to Princess Elizabeth, he finds her at once. He then walks alone with her at night - I don't think that a Princess fearing for her life would just agree (or be allowed by her guards) to just stroll off with some unknown man.

Some other things were thrown into the mix that seemed very staged and hurried through.

There was a background romance between Brendan and a lady-in-waiting, which was at first a surprise because from the way Brendan described this woman before, I had thought that she was an old lady. He seems to develop feelings for her overnight, and it never seemed all that convincing to me.

A woman from Brendan's past, who raised him in place of the mother he never had, comes into the story, but only for a matter of minutes. It was just so very pointless and strange.

The third would be Brendan's mysterious identity. It's an overused plot tactic, but one that I normally love if it's well written. But here, it remains just an overused plot tactic. Brendan is a foundling, meaning that his anonymous mother abandoned him when he was a baby and that he was "found" by someone else, who raised him as a servant. He bashes us over the head with this fact repeatedly in the beginning of the book, and for the rest of it, never lets us forget it. Practically by page 2 I knew for certain that he was going to find out something about his heritage, or meet his parents, or something like that.

I just wasn't interested in this book. Even though the action happens fairly quickly, it wasn't exciting because I just didn't care about the characters.

Not all that good, and I will most likely not be reading the next installment in the series.