A Dangerous Inheritance by Alison Weir

“A Dangerous Inheritance tells the dramatic story of two heroines, separated by time, but intriguingly linked by history’s most famous murder mystery.”

 

It seems like fate that I finished this book on the day that they verified Richard III’s bones were found in a car park in Leicester as this book tells the story of the Princes’ in the Tower but takes a different look at it through the eyes of two girls.  The girls are Katherine Grey and Katherine Plantagenet separated by a nearly one hundred years but sharing a common bond by trying to solve the mystery of what happened to those boys in the tower.

Katherine Grey is the Sister of Lady Jane, the Queen who reigned for just 9 days and her story follows what happens to both Jane and Katherine as their parents stop at nothing to get them the Crown of England.  We know what happens to Jane but I hadn’t read much about Katherine so it was really interesting to see the story from her eyes.  From her early marriage to Harry whom she falls head over heels in love with to her incarceration in the Tower by Queen Elizabeth I the book shows her spirit and also her determination not to turn out like her Sister.  Katherine wants the Crown at the start but realises after all that it is love she craves.

Katherine Plantagenet is someone I had never heard of.  She was King Richard III’s illegitimate daughter who wants to believe that her Father is not the demon that he is portrayed.  She remembers the kind hearted Father who she lived with in Middleham who she could tell anything to and she does all in her power to carry on with that belief.  When the rumours start about her Father having the two Princes’ put to death she tries her hardest to find some evidence to the contrary and that is where the mystery starts.

I really do enjoy books by Alison Weir as you don’t realise how much history you are learning whilst you read.  She is such an imaginative story teller that you get carried away in the era that she is writing about and all too soon the 500 hundred pages have flown by.  I was intrigued to see how she would write the events with Richard III as there is a lot of hearsay about this King but I found it all believable and really wanted Katherine to find out something that would exonerate her Father.  Of course she doesn’t as after all this is a book about history.

If you haven’t picked up anything by Alison Weir I would highly recommend any of her books, just jump in and let the history wash over you.