by Karen Harper
11. What role does love, both romantic and familial, play in The Last Boleyn? Where do you see love felt and expressed between these characters?
12. So much in this novel happens at the whim of a King, but what of the Kings themselves? What do you think motivates the male monarchs in this story? Why do they behave the way that they do, and what are your feelings about Francois and Henry in particular? Are they sympathetic characters in any way? What are they looking to achieve in their lives?
13. Interspersed throughout the novel are Tudor sonnets or songs that the author tells us in the Afterword she is using “to help establish the mood, emotions, and themes of the story” with the very words that Mary herself might have known. What do you make of this literary device? What, if anything, did it add to your reading experience?
14. After Mary’s son, Henry Carey, who became the first Lord of Hunsdon under Elizabeth I (Anne’s daughter), put down the Catholic Dacre rebellion in 1570, Elizabeth sent him a letter that read in part, “I doubt much, my Harry, whether that the victory were given me, more joyed me, or that you were by God appointed the instrument of my glory; and I assure you that for my country’s good, the first must suffice, but for my heart’s contention the second pleased me . . . you have done much for honour . . . Your loving kinswoman, Elizabeth R.” What do you think Mary would have made of this correspondence between her niece and her son? What do you think of it, knowing the history that created them both?
15. From what you’ve seen of Tudor England in this novel, are there any similarities that you can draw to modern society? Much has changed, but what driving forces, societal pressures, or political pitfalls that Mary had to navigate seem most familiar to you? Can you think of any contemporary families that remind you of the Boleyns? What in Mary’s story is timeless and resonates most with you as a modern reader?
The Fyre Mirror
AN ELIZABETH I MYSTERY
KAREN HARPER
In the latest installment of Karen Harper’s acclaimed mystery series, Elizabethan England comes alive as its young queen struggles to stop a serial killer who uses fire as a weapon . . .
Smitten with spring fever, Elizabeth Tudor escapes London for fantastical Nonsuch Palace in the sweet Surrey countryside. There she hopes to relax and pose for the official royal portrait for which she is holding a competition. But one of her artists is burned to death, and portraits of the queen are going up in flames. When she hears that her rival, the dangerous Mary, Queen of Scots, has been peering into mirrors and announcing, “I see the next queen of England!” Elizabeth summons her Privy Plot Council. Time is running out, because the enemy who stalks the queen means to destroy not only her portraits and artists, but her very life.
“Tudor England’s answer to V. I. Warshawski.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Harper’s facility with historical figures is extraordinary.”
—Los Angeles Times
ISBN: 0-312-99622-5
AVAILABLE FROM ST. MARTIN’S / MINOTAUR PAPERBACKS
Also by Karen Harper
The Fatal Fashione
The Fyre Mirror
The Queene’s Christmas
The Thorne Maze
The Queene’s Cure
The Twylight Tower
The Tidal Poole
The Poyson Garden
Copyright 1983 by Karen S. Harper
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in slightly different form as Passion’s Reign in the United States by Kensington Publishing Corp., in New York, in 1983.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harper, Karen (Karen S.)
The last Boleyn / Karen Harper.
1. Boleyn, Mary, 1508–1543—Fiction. 2. Henry VIII, King of England, 1491–1547—Fiction. 3. Great Britain—History—Henry VIII, 1509–1547—Fiction. 4. Ladies-in-waiting—Fiction. 5. British—France—Fiction. 6. Mistresses—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.A624792L37 2006
813'.54—dc22 2005008996
eISBN: 978-0-307-34538-7
v3.0
