Book Review: The Falcon’s Rise: A novel of Anne Boleyn by Natalia Richards

Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher: MadeGlobal Publishing
Pub date: 1 September 2019
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Description from Amazon

The day before her execution, Anne Boleyn’s mind wanders back to the journey that changed her life…

Born into the Boleyn family in rural Norfolk, obscurity looms, but when Anne’s father, Thomas, moves the family to Hever Castle, in Kent, to further his own interests, the family’s fortunes take a turn for the better. Thomas secures a place for Anne’s sister, Mary, at the prestigious court of Margaret of Austria, but fate has other plans, and Anne ends up taking her place.

At thirteen, Anne yearns for adventure. However, unused to curbing her outspoken tongue and youthful curiosity, she discovers that life at Margaret’s court is not quite how she’d imagined. Experiencing love, loss, jealousy and fear, she soon realises that her future happiness lies in her own hands – and that she must shape her own destiny…

The Falcon’s Rise is the first part of a two-part series, beginning the journey with the young Anne Boleyn growing into the woman who captured the heart of a king.

This book offers such a refreshing portrayal of Anne as a child. Many of us are used to reading Anne’s story and whilst I will never get tired of reading about it I’ve never read a whole book based on her childhood and that’s why I loved this. It brought Anne to life as a girl rather than the lady and queen we all know.

We see Anne grow as a young girl, full of intrigue and it was interesting to read about her speaking openly about matters she maybe shouldn’t be talking about! I felt I could see Anne’s independence start shining through as well as her thirst for knowledge and the first intrigues of the new learning.

The descriptions of the court and clothing are so vivid you can picture them as well as the people. I enjoyed reading about Anne’s relationship with Margaret and the Emperor and was interested to read of events from their perspective rather than Henry VIII’s such as the planned war with France. I came to admire Margaret in this book and I think I’ll be reading more about her.

The story ends with Anne leaving Mechelen to travel to Paris and I am certainly looking forward to the next instalment The Falcon’s Flight was published 19 May 2020 and is now on my TBR list!

This is definitely recommended to Tudor fans and historical fiction readers.

You can get The Falcon’s Rise here: Amazon