The Confession of Katherine Howard

In her fourth historical novel, Dunn (The Queen of Subtleties; The Sixth Wife; The Queen's Sorrow) accomplishes the immense task of chronicling the life and personality of Henry VIII's fifth wife, Katherine Howard (1524–42), with consummate skill, exceptional creativity, and a laudable attention to detail. Told from the perspective of Cat Tilney, who was a ward of the Duchess of Norfolk like Katherine, the novel follows the allied ladies as they progress from childhood to womanhood. Unlike other novels about the ill-fated queen, Dunn's Katherine is neither ignorant nor flighty but rather a young woman caught in the world she shaped after being all but abandoned by her family. Don't label Dunn's book as a new twist on an old tale, however, for it is much more than that; Katherine's relationship with Francis Dereham, which would later be her undoing, is shown for what it very possibly could have been and what it is rarely acknowledged as—a childhood crush.