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| The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn |
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The jewel in the crown of my Elizabethan Quartet and the culmination of the extraordinary century that ignited the first icons of feminism, Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn is my bestselling, award-winning debut novel. An historical fiction classic, it is the single book ever written to have at its center the relationship between Anne and her only child with Henry VIII — Elizabeth Tudor. The juxtaposed stories of mother and daughter — both queens, both champions of the Protestant Reformation, both seekers of a marriage for love — captured the hearts and minds of readers across the globe. |
At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, the diary is pressed into her hands by a wizened old noblewoman. In reading it, the young queen discovers a great deal about her much-maligned mother — one whose name she has not uttered in more than twenty years. What is revealed is Anne's fierce determination, her hard-won knowledge about being a woman in a world ruled by despotic men, and her deep love for the infant daughter taken from her shortly after her birth. |
| In the journal's pages, Elizabeth finds an echo of her own dramatic life as a passionate young woman at the center of England's powerful male establishment, and with the knowledge gained from them, makes a resolution that will change the course of history. |
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Also sold at The Tower of London
and Hampton Court Palace |
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| "Long before Philippa Gregory, there was Robin Maxwell, whose novel The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn changed the way readers perceived Henry VIII's second wife. In this dramatic retelling of Anne's life, Maxwell creates an historical fiction classic. But beware: this is truly addictive reading." |
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| — Michelle Moran, author of Madame Tussaud |
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| "A daughter finds her mother's secret diary and what she discovers forces her to reassess everything she thought she knew. In the hands of Robin Maxwell, this inspired idea became an instant classic that has delighted and touched the hearts of generations of readers. The daughter is Queen Elizabeth I, the mother is Anne Boleyn, and the story is as ingenious, gripping, and deeply satisfying today as when it was first published. A must read for lovers of historical fiction-and all mothers and daughters." |
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| — Susan Bordo, author of The Creation of Anne Boleyn |
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| "History doesn't come more fascinating - or lurid - than the wife-felling reign of Henry VIII." |
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| — Entertainment Weekly |
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"A wonderfully juicy historical novel so convincing that it's difficult to believe it is the author's
first...Maxwell brings all of bloody Tudor England vividly to life."
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— Publishers Weekly (starred review) |
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| "Maxwell knows her stuff. . . . In her treatment of Tudor's greatest tragedy, Robin Maxwell has gone where no man has gone before." |
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| — Saria Kraft, Malibu Times |
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| "Vivid and immediate, penned in the queen's own words, The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn intertwines Anne's tumultuous rise and fall with the early reign of her daughter, as Elizabeth struggles to assert her power. With a unique gift for bringing the past to life, Robin Maxwell catapults us into the hearts and minds of two women bound by blood and fate in the perilous intrigues of the Tudor court. The result is dazzling, historical fiction at its finest." |
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| — C. W. Gortner, author of The Confessions of Catherine de Medici |
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| "The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn was the first Anne Boleyn novel I read and it captivated me. I'm hard to please when it comes to Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I, but Maxwell brought these women and their stories to life beautifully. It's a book to keep and read again. A delight." |
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| — Claire Ridgway, TheAnneBoleynFiles.com |
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| "A novel with depth, character, and a compelling plot." |
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| — Rose-Marie Donovan, Delray Times |
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| "Energetic . . . should appeal to all fanciers of imagined portraits of Tudor-era heroines, like the late Eleanor Hibbert's (aka Victoria Holt, Philippa Carr, Jean Plaidy) gallery of royal queens." |
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| — Kirkus Reviews |
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