Anne Boleyn, A King's Obsession: A Novel

"Alison Weir’s novel is a persuasive attempt to restore the humanity of a tragic, misrepresented figure, one of history’s original nasty women. Anne Boleyn ruled England alongside Henry VIII for only three years, from 1533 to 1536, before she famously lost her head. But the couple had a bumpy six-year courtship before that, an extended, aphrodisiacal game of hide-and-seek. Weir’s doomed Anne is ferociously smart and guilty of nothing but craving the power that’s rightfully hers to claim. The book suggests that beheading might be the price to pay for having a mind of one’s own."