Six Wives of Henry VIII

by Alison Weir

The book The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir is a historical book about the true story of King Henry who was notorious for how he treated his six wives. The book has a chronological timeline including all of his wives, which is very helpful for history buffs, and for novice like me if I want to look back on a date I forgot. 

As I was researching this book, I found that the author wrote this book to debunk the myths about 16th century Britain. She said that there have been many books about King Henry’s marriages but not one of them (in her opinion), “ …have fully and/or thoroughly explored the essential human character of each of Henry’s six wives.”

I liked how the author wrote each of the wives’ lives with so much detail, from birth to death. Each wife took just over 100 pages, which is a manageable length because there aren’t so many words that you want to stop and read another book. After reading about one wife, then you can take a break and come back for another one later. The information is also very educational because if you’ve ever studied Henry VIII in school, you would’ve heard about his life and feel intrigued to learn more.

Another thing that I enjoyed were the pictures inserted into the middle of the book. It showed every wife (with captions) and relatives of Henry VIII. It was interesting to see what each wife looked like and put a face to the stories you read. Even though all of them are lined up on the book cover, you don’t know which one is which, so the inserts were really helpful.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading the book. I would recommend this to teenagers because younger children may get bored after a while.