The six queens of Henry VIII

Meet some monarchs of misfortune! As the preface stresses, the royal court of Henry VIII was "a dangerous place." The job requirements for queen were exacting, terminations frequent, and not all applicants were volunteers. Each queen is briefly introduced with a page that includes a one-paragraph biography, key dates, and other concisely presented facts (dowries, allies, motto). The very readable text, written in a conversational voice that makes the centuries vanish, proceeds largely chronologically. A flashback, written in present tense, recounts a significant episode for each queen: Catherine of Aragon led an army into battle while pregnant; Katherine Parr managed to talk Henry out of a warrant for her arrest. Elaborate borders in the style of bejeweled Renaissance frames incorporate heraldic imagery; for the most part, the art eschews gore, though the section on Anne Boleyn concludes with an image of an executioner's sword dripping with blood. The queens' faces, uniformly young and beautiful, all resemble one another, with slightly different coloring. Andrews poses the subjects with modern-day insouciance and takes mild liberties with the fashions of the period but for the most part depicts dress accurately. Occasionally adjacent aristocrats are shown with darker skin. A Tudor family tree illustrated with thumbnail portraits, a timeline, and a final spread on Henry's important future-regnant children, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I, clarify and continue the story of this powerful and vulnerable family. Majesty can be messy--a hip history that's at times bloody yet never dull.(Nonfiction. 7-12) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.