At the King’s Pleasure by Kate Emerson

Title: At the King’s Pleasure
Author: Kate Emerson
Series: Secrets of the Tudor Court
Previous Books in the Series:
1. The Pleasure Palace
2. Between Two Queens
3. By Royal Decree
Date Started: June 9
Date Finished: June 10
Format: Paperback from library co-op

I think the thing that stuns me most about the Secrets of the Tudor Court series is the fact that if you read the books in the order in which they’re released you’re in fact not reading them in chronological order. History wise at least. In By Royal Decree (book 3) we had gone through King Henry VIII’s reign and into his daughter Mary’s, but in At the King’s Pleasure (book 4) we’re back into the early days of Henry’s reign. He’s still married to Catherine and the Boleyn’s are still children. This book follows the tale of Lady Anne Stafford and how she navigates life at court, a new husband, a flirtation with one of the king’s most trusted men and her brother’s meddlesome ways.

I’ll keep my review short and simple. At the King’s Pleasure is another one of those books that I just loved. Anne is a very head strong character for a lady of that time period and I felt her anger when she was unjustly sent away from court and imprisoned in a nunnery. Her flirtation with William Compton was deliciously seductive and I kind of sort of was rooting for him. Her husband George Hastings was an okay male character, but I don’t like how easily he was swayed by Anne’s brother about the affair. He is quick to become jealous and I didn’t really care for that at all. As for Anne’s brother, I was really shocked how dedicated she was to save him despite everything that he had done to her. I guess blood really is thicker than water.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. I liked how easy of a read this was. If you lose track of who’s who at court you can always flip to the handy character guide in the back of the book. I also liked how the book time jumped you didn’t have to deal with any unnecessary plot padding.

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