Anna of Kleve: Queen of Secrets

Really enjoyed this. Weir fleshed out the small amount known about Anna von Kleve with some very interesting what-ifs and made her come to life. The most interesting portion to me was the beginning, about Anna growing up in Kleve — so few books are set at the smaller German courts in this time period.

Yeah, I got about 15 pages in before I was like, “Wait, what's happening?”

In that short span of time, we see Anna of Kleves having sex with her cousin, a teenage boy that she had literally only just met about an hour ago. Already, he starts professing his love for her before they barely had half a day's worth of conversation. When he starts to kiss her, she says no, but he insists and she lets herself enjoy it. I'm just SO confused!! I later read other reviews that said that she gives birth to an illegitimate child by her cousin and has a secret family on the sidelines when she's going through the whole Henry VIII debacle and honestly, I'm not really here for it. I am increasingly fascinated by Anna of Kleves because I like that she made the best of a shitty situation, swallowed her pride and managed to keep her head down long enough to not just avoid a beheading by Henry VIII, but even to become a pretty well-respected lady of the court. I liked the fact that she remained single throughout her life but in so doing survived almost all the wives of Henry VIII, and even some of his children. I get that there is probably very little material on Anna of Kleves to work with, so I was already expecting some creative storytelling to fill in the gaps but having sex at 12 years old and then having a secret family on the sidelines is just too much for me to handle. That Anna would go against her entire worldview that's been drilled into her since she was born just for a teenage boy she's barely met for more than a few hours and had little conversation with, and her uncle's bastard son too - I just cannot. Even if we allow for her being only 12 years old, it's still so so hard to stomach.