The Last Tudor

By: Philippa Gregory

Narrated by: Bianca Amato

Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

'How long do I have?' I force a laugh.

'Not long,' he says very quietly. 'They have confirmed your sentence of death. You are to be beheaded tomorrow. We don't have long at all.'

Jane Grey was Queen of England for nine days. Using her position as cousin to the deceased king, her father and his conspirators put her on the throne ahead of the king's half sister Mary, who quickly mustered an army, claimed her crown and locked Jane in the Tower. When Jane refused to betray her Protestant faith, Mary sent her to the executioner's block. There Jane turned her father's greedy, failed grab for power into her own brave and tragic martyrdom.

'Learn you to die' is the advice that Jane gives in a letter to her younger sister Katherine, who has no intention of dying. She intends to enjoy her beauty and her youth and find love. But her lineage makes her a threat to the insecure and infertile Queen Mary and, when Mary dies, to her sister Queen Elizabeth, who will never allow Katherine to marry and produce a potential royal heir before she does. So when Katherine's secret marriage is revealed by her pregnancy, she, too, must go to the Tower.

'Farewell, my sister,' writes Katherine to the youngest Grey sister, Mary. A beautiful dwarf, disregarded by the court, Mary finds it easy to keep secrets, especially her own, while avoiding Elizabeth's suspicious glare. After watching her sisters defy the queen, Mary is aware of her own perilous position as a possible heir to the throne. But she is determined to command her own destiny and be the last Tudor to risk her life in matching wits with her ruthless and unforgiving cousin Elizabeth.

Read by Bianca Amato, narrator of Three Sisters, Three Queens and The Taming of the Queen.

©2017 Philippa Gregory (P)2017 Simon & Schuster UK

Tail end (or tale's end) of the Tudor saga

This is apparently the last book the author will write on the Tudors and is about three Tudor sisters (cousins of Elizabeth 1), who sacrificed almost everything either for a religious ideal or for love. Because of the latter, I found the novel quite shallow and lacking in substance. I got quite bored with hearing how much two of the sisters loved their husbands. The book wasn't bad enough to abandon, but it was like drinking a very flat watered down Coke. Not at all satisfying after you were expecting something much fuller-bodied. Very disappointing.

Bringing history alive

So many women’s stories are overlooked in the official history books. Once again Philippe Gregory has released the stories of three women who deserve to have their stories told Beautifully read, a sad but compelling story

Wow a great read

Apart from Lady Jane Grey I had never heard or known of the other sisters it certainly portrays Elizabeth's paranoia against her coudins. I enjoyed the story so much I am going to go back and start from the first book again.

Did not enjoy

I do not understand the chapter arrangement of the book at all. The timeline seems to be scrambling all over the book. The authors note is in the middle of the book(chapter 30). There seems to be repetitive chapters as well. It confuses and annoyed me to no end. Not sure if it is the intention of the author or a mistake from audible.