I would give this a 5 for research, 4 for narration, 4 for plot, 3 for character and 1 for dialogue (interior or conventional).

Given that the book is written in the first person (with multiple POV) I found the leaden dialogue to be a fatal flaw. Even brilliant narrators such as Davina Porter could not bring the paper thin charaters to life for me. All the historic facts have been marshalled, but are defeated by anachonistic whining on the part of the heroine, who by all rights deserves our sympathy. Granted, believably getting inside the mind of a brilliant, aristocratic, 16th century child / woman has a high degree of difficulty, still this effort fell short for me.

Lord Dudley (the villian) seemed to have stepped straight out of a 1940's costume drama (think the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood) - if he had a mustache he would twirl it.

I stuck with it for 13 hours, but just couldn't bear to listen to it grind to the inevitable, 'heartbreaking' conclusion.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I am a lover of good historical fiction and this fit the bill. I found the diary format very effective, and the use of different narrators for the characters authoring the diary entries was brilliant. I loved the voices of all the narrators and felt they expertly captured the emotions and spirit of their individual characters.

The story begins time-wise near the chronological end of the book, therefore about 90 percent of the book is explaining how the characters got to that point. I was worried about this in the beginning, since the suspense of the book's ending is gone and the book will fail miserably if the story isn't engaging. However I was so engulfed in the story, I found myself forgetting I already knew the story's outcome. I also became so attached to the characters that I was hoping for an unrealistic plot twist at the end to change that outcome.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction or simply a well executed audiobook.

Weir has the ability to make you feel right in the middle of the story. Her accurate history details is amazing. Please add more of her books.

I just finished Anne Easter Smith's series which was absolutely captivating and maybe this was just overkill - but I could not get into the story, didn't enjoy the narration and finally gave up.

There are a lot of listeners who really love this book, but for me, not so much.
Alison Weir is a brilliant historian. I advise sticking to her non-fiction.
If you are familiar with the history of Lady Jane, you may find that this novelization gives no new insights into the major players. I found it very predictable.
Overall, the narration is solid. I had no trouble distinguishing the voices of the various characters. But I got very tired of hearing "Tu-tor" when my ears expected "Tu-dor"...that flaw pulled me out of the story every time...and considering the setting, that was VERY often.
Overall, good "brain-off" listening if you enjoy historical fiction set in this era.