Book Review: Lady Mary by Lucy Worsley

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Lady Mary follows the story of Mary Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VIII, during her tumultuous teenage years as she falls from grace during the breakdown of her parent’s marriage and beyond.

I would definitely describe this as younger adult. We follow Mary from the age of 11 until 21, yet her tone and behaviour never seem to mature beyond that of a child. She’s petulant and naive, prone to fainting and just generally acting like a girl, not the dominant princess she’s raised to be. The writing is also sometimes overly simplistic in its presentation too, and lacked any real emotional complexity. Things are just described or explained ‘as is’ without any subtlety.

Secondary characters are also very black and white, almost cookie cutter images of their real historical counterparts. Anne is described as the ‘wicked lady’, forcing Mary into servitude and despair, while her mother is the proud Spanish queen. There’s no development of these characters beyond this, which I was disappointed by. Other characters are introduced before being suddenly removed from the plot incredibly quickly before we can get to know them, (namely Lady Shelton’s nephew) and felt almost like accessories to drive the plot or create some small amount of drama to make the many years of Mary’s confinement more interesting than it probably was originally.

I would have loved to see more of the relationship we see between Jane, Mary and Henry towards the end of the novel. The idea of some weird ‘family’ dynamic, having a queen so close in age to Mary and her struggles to accept and gain friendship from this woman who clearly just wanted to please the king and her new stepdaughter. Unfortunately these scenes were rather rushed after spending so many chapters seeing Mary locked away, which again I found disappointing. I also thought there was a missed opportunity to see a future Mary seize the throne after her brother’s death, which would have brought some much needed action and strength of character to Mary. Ending where it did was a little lacklustre.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this period of history, and because of that I did enjoy this. But I just found it lacking in quite a few key areas. If I was ten years younger, I probably would have lapped this up and I do think there’s a large gap in the market for historical YA of this era. It would a pleasant change of scene for me to read, it flowed well and was rather light and innocent in tone which I liked. There’s also so little written about Mary that isn’t negative that this felt very refreshing.

Perfect for younger teens interested in a queen often overshadowed by her father and younger sister.

 - 3 stars