Brazen by Katherine Longshore Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Love isn't making others into the people we imagine they should be. It's about letting people be themselves”- Brazen, Katherine Longshore

Mary Howard has always lived in the shadow of her powerful family. But when she’s married off to Henry Fitzroy, King Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, she rockets into the Tudor court’s inner circle. Mary and “Fitz” join a tight clique of rebels who test the boundaries of court’s strict rules with their games, dares, and flirtations. The more Mary gets to know Fitz, the harder she falls for him, but is forbidden from seeing him alone. The rules of court were made to be pushed…but pushing them too far means certain death. Is true love worth dying for?

When I said I was going to be tying up some loose ends in November, I didn't think I would be going this far back. I've been putting off this book since MARCH for God's sake. But I've been in the mood for a little historical fiction lately despite the fact that everything I pick up seems to be a mystery and this was the only available book on my shelf (besides The Revolution of Marina M, but I'm saving that one for December). I mean, the book's over 500 pages and Tarnish kind of put me off wanting to go anywhere near this series for a while.

But this is one of the few series I actually wanted to get to this year from start to finish, so better late then never, right? 

Brazen is probably the best written of all the Royal Circle books, which really isn't saying anything at all. Longshore still writes in that annoying half old English-half modern English way that really takes you out of Tudor England and puts you in, I don't know, a suburban high school. I'm also impressed with her ability to both overwrite and underwrite at the same time- that takes talent. She writes paragraphs that look pretty and sound very dramatic, but in reality end up meaning very little. Reading this book at times is like eating a piece of cake that's 80% frosting and 20% cake.

In Longshore's defense though, she does focus more on pure politics than she did in any of her other books. I liked those parts, even if I did think she had a tendency to overdramaticize things. Also, all of her heroines are different people and yet they all sound the same. Especially in the case of Tarnish and Brazen. I could not tell Anne in Tarnish from Mary in Brazen. They both have that strong, female historical fiction character thing going, and likely believe things that neither the real Anne Boleyn nor the real Mary Fitzroy probably actually gave much thought to. I think my main problem with Longshore's work is I think she romanticizes her subjects too much. She wants us to like them so badly, but in the end they just come across as, again, generic historical fiction females.

I also took a lot of issue with the dialogue. It's so overwrought, with every word laden with meaning that it drives me crazy. Especially in Anne and Mary's exchanges.

I get that Longshore wants to evoke The Tudors. I mean, when these books came out that show was one of the biggest things on TV, Phillipa Gregory was as big of a name here as she was in England, people couldn't get enough of 16th century England. Of course, The Tudors was a fairly ridiculous show and one I was never that into myself, but I suppose she's successful somewhat in invoking the not-so-historically based intrigue of the show. I'm happy I finally finished the Royal Circle series. I doubt I'll ever go back to this series, but it's something that needed to be done before the end of the year. I'll put up my Series Thoughts soon.

5 out of 10