I purchased this during my Britain 2007 holiday trip.

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Synopsis
Alison Weir, our pre-eminent popular historian, has now fulfilled a life's ambition to write historical fiction. She has chosen as her subject the bravest, most sympathetic and wronged heroine of Tudor England, Lady Jane Grey. Lady Jane Grey was born into times of extreme danger. Child of a scheming father and a ruthless mother, for whom she was merely a pawn in a dynastic power game with the highest stakes, she lived a live in thrall to political machinations and lethal religious fervour. Jane's astonishing and essentially tragic story was played out during one of the most momentous periods of English history. As a great-niece of Henry VIII, and the cousin of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I, she grew up realize that she could never throw off the chains of her destiny. Her honesty, intelligence and strength of character carry the reader through all the vicious twists of Tudor power politics, to her nine-day reign and its unbearably poignant conclusion.

Rented the Audiobook version of this book from AllEars Bookstore in Saratoga, CA.

This isn't the best version of Jane Grey's story that I've come across. Jane is quite whiny at times; I'm not saying her life didn't suck, because it surely did, but the self-righteousness in Jane's character was not in other titles about her. It often makes her arrogant, and a less pleasing narrator.
I'm just finishing disc 12. I hope the last four discs are of better quality than what I've listened to so far.

Finished today.

Ultimately, I think this novel was merely OK. Jane often came across as a brat who whined and was extremely self-righteous. She seemed rather cold. I found it interesting that while many European scholars attested to her intellect and virtue, many members of the Court didn't even seem to know who she was. She truly must have spent most of her time with books!

Frances Brandon's sudden "motherly" awareness in the last few chapters of the book, once Jane has been arrested for treason, was such a sudden change of character that it felt contrived. I mean, she spent Jane's entire life belittling the girl, but suddenly she loves her daughter dearly? Of course, she doesn't do much to help Jane, so how deep can that love really flow?
Also, did we have to toss in the details of Brandon's affair? She's not the main character of this tale, so that seemed unnecessary.

I thought that Queen Mary was well done, and the audio cd, with its multiple actors playing each viewpoint, was a good effort. But the prose and emotions of the characters themselves tended to be on the weak side.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

sent to Michelle Roberti of Coles Point, VA to fulfill a request on Paperbackswap.com!