The Sixth Wife

By Suzannah Dunn

A gripping novel of love, passion, betrayal and heartbreak. Katherine Parr survived Henry VIII to find true love with Thomas Seymour – only to realise that her love was based on a lie.

Clever, sensible and well-liked, Katherine Parr trod a knife edge of diplomacy and risk during her marriage to an ageing, cantankerous King Henry. When he died, she was in her late thirties and love, it seemed, had passed her by. Until, that is, the popular Thomas Seymour – bold, handsome, witty and irresistible – began a relentless courtship that won her heart. Kate fell passionately in love for the first time in her life and, also for the first time, threw caution to the wind with a marriage that shocked the worldly courtiers around her.

But all too soon it becomes obvious that Thomas has plans beyond his marriage for the young, capricious, quick-witted heir to the throne – Elizabeth – and that in his quest for power, he might even be prepared to betray his now pregnant wife…

Kate's whirlwind romance is witnessed and recounted by her closest friend, Catherine, Duchess of Suffolk, who lives through the tumultuous years after Henry's death at Kate's side. A sharp and canny courtier in her own right, Cathy is keenly aware of the political realities of life at court and is, apparently, a loyal supporter of her friend. As her story weaves its way through that of Kate and Thomas's heady passion and tragic denouement, however, it gradually becomes clear that Cathy has her own tale of betrayal and regret to tell…

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Sep 4, 2008
• ISBN: 9780007280124

Suzannah Dunn

Suzannah Dunn is the author of ten novels in the United Kingdom, including The Sixth Wife and The Queen of Subtleties, both published in the United States as well. She lives in Brighton, England.

Reviews for The Sixth Wife

[nkmunn · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

More like a 2.5 bcs it feels like too much context is left out in favor of imagined domestic, romantic, and sexual detail that feels like soap opera filler. If there was ever a cast of real world characters who don't need that touch up to create a sense of dramatic arc or intrigue to support a page turning work of historic fiction this might be them ?

[slvoight_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the story of Queen Katherine Parr as told by her friend Catherine, Duchess of Suffolk. It covers the years from Henry VIII's death till Catherine's own in 1548. While some liberty has been taken with the story a lot of facts are correct and it was an enjoyable read.

[cariola_6 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Another disappointing novel from Suzannah Dunn (although nowhere near as bad as The Confession of Catherine Howard. The focus is Katherine Parr, Henry VII's last queen, in her brief marriage to her fourth husband, Thomas Seymour, and the narrator is Catherine Brandon, third wife and now widow of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. While it sounds promising, Dunn manages to make all of her characters either insipid or despicable. "Kate" Parr, a four-times wed woman in her mid-thirties, is so naive that she has no clue that her new husband is an ambitious bounder, and she indulges his spendthrift ways. Worse still, the friend she has called on to help her through a difficult pregnancy ends up bonking her husband on a regular basis--and this is the narrator, so with whom are we supposed to identify or empathize? On top of that, she obviously detests the young Elizabeth, who is rendered extremely unlikeable, constantly rolling her eyes at what anyone else says, and Jane Grey is depicted as a Protestant fanatic and a stick-in-the-mud, even though she is only 10 years old. One of Dunn's most annoying and anachronistic tricks from The Confession of Catherine Howard shows up again: Characters repeatedly greet one another with "Hello, you," or in some cases, they just stare at one another and say, "You." (I hated this in another book not by Dunn, Lori Larsen's The Girls; it's just so irritating and phony.)So all-in-all, there's not much to be commended here, and I'll be giving away the thrid Dunn on my shelf without bothering to read it. I'm sure I'd only find Anne Boleyn gazing at King Henry and murmuring "You," and that would truly make me retch.

[tekajust · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I thought it was well written. Liked it much better than the The Queen of Subleties. Loved Kate for her strength and was saddened that she was the one to perish. Cathy surprised me by getting caught up with Henry but I felt she redeemed herself in the end. Guess I must be a hopeless romantic when it comes to English lit.

[nellista_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I can't say that I really warmed to the character of Cathy. I have just finished reading The Queen's Sorrow, and much preferred the characters and writing in that book.

[bhowell_35 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is an easy and entertaining read, the story of the life of Henry VIII's sixth wife, Catherine Parr, who outlived her husband.