She has the voice of an angel,but one false note could send her back to her old life of poverty. Ten-year-old Bess is only good at one thing—singing, which has no place in her family’s bleak existence. When her father sells her to the king of England, she balances the loss of all she’s known against a world of music and plenty, and builds a new life as a royal minstrel, earning the nickname the … loss of all she’s known against a world of music and plenty, and builds a new life as a royal minstrel, earning the nickname the king’s songbird.
Bess comes of age in the dangerous Tudor court, where the stakes are always high, and where politics, heartbreak, and disease threaten everyone from the king to the lowliest musician.
Her life has one constant: Tom, her first and dearest friend. But when Bess intrigues with a young Anne Boleyn and strains against the restrictions of her life in the shadows, will she discover that the biggest risk of all is listening to her own stubborn heart?
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Immerse yourself in the Tudor court
As the title might suggest, Songbird is about music: in this case, about a young girl called Bess at the court of Henry VIII who possesses the voice of an angel. I don’t want to include any spoilers but the first line of the novel is one of the most dramatic I’ve read in a long time.
It is a tale of upstairs and downstairs at the Tudor court, where the members of ‘the Music’ as it is called, witness close-up all the movers and shakers so familiar to us (the King, Queen, Cardinal Wolsey, Anne Boleyn) but live their own lives, totally separate to the rest of the court. Karen Heenan writes with so much verve and attention to detail that the reader lives and breathes Bess’s life as she tells her story in the first person.
At one point, Bess describes Anne Boleyn’s black eyes as ‘dangerous’ and when she first meets the King, she describes him as a ‘golden giant’.
There is romance a-plenty in Heenan’s novel: intense passion that spills over into every aspect of Bess’s life. The reader is with her every step of the way, following each of her attachments, with their hopes and dreams. One possible suitor is from Bess’s own circle but another not; knowing a handsome young courtier is beyond her reach, she doesn’t expect to be noticed back. All this makes for a gripping, often edgy story that is very hard to gauge and keeps you guessing until the very last page. Very highly recommended.
If you love historical romance, this is the book for you!
However, the most impressive thing is that Heenan has a real wealth of knowledge on Tudor times and her research, passion, and hunger for this period in history shines through every page. Women, their plight in the 16th century, and how they handled those terms is masterfully approached. Unapologetically, Heenan shines light on a corrupt, sexually charged court that often manipulated the innocent.
Strength of every character is surgically precise and though I don’t ordinarily read romances, I was stunned at a debut novel handling the various personalities in the story so very well. This is a rich, colorful romp, complete with whores, teenage infatuations that become dangerous, turbulent times, and even a plague! Give it a read!
The opening sentence in Songbird by Karen Heenan immediately sets the dark tone of Renaissance England and hooks you into the story: “Two days before my tenth birthday, my father sold me to the King of England.” The historical novel, Songbird (The Tudor Court, Book 1), is set in the backdrop of King Henry VIII’s court and has an element of romance. The story begins when Bethan’s impoverished father presents her to King Henry VIII to audition for an elite group of singers and musicians that entertain the court. A young musician, Tom, offers to accompany her on a string instrument to help her relax as she sings and brings out the quality of her singing voice. The courtiers hush as she sings like a songbird, more to the young musician for whom she feels an instant connection. Her father relinquishes Bethan at a high price to the King. Tom shows her kindness and helps her to adjust to a new family of minstrels at the court. He gives her the pseudonym Bess Llewelyn, more befitting of her Welsh background. The story spans from her coming-of-age teen years to her maturation as an adult. She is caught up in the decadence of courtly life and the lure of passion, dismissing Tom’s strong feelings for her. Consequences of past and present reckless liaisons collide when Bethan must come to terms with her place in life and relationships.
Author Karen Heenan is a gifted storyteller who has written a spelling-binding novel from the first-person perceptive of Bethan, a musical servant behind the scenes in the King’s court. Bethan’s underlying beauty, similar to Anne Boleyn, enthralls men. Impetuous, she often lives for the moment and gives no thought to how her reckless action and words affect others. Devastated by her father’s abandonment, Bethan struggles to understand how she fits in the world. I particularly empathize with Tom, whose mother, a prostitute, sells him as a choir boy to the King. Losing his boyish voice at a young age, Tom has to play an instrument and compose music to remain at court. He is Bethan’s soulmate, always there to support and advise her. But she dismisses his loyalty and feelings in pursuit of loftier passions. Yet, he has limits on what he will accept from her unrequited love.
Though the novel centers around Bethan and Tom, you can also get caught up in the lives of memorable secondary characters. It reminds me somewhat of the Downtown Abbey series that shows the lives of both the aristocratic family members and their servants. Although there is a romantic component to the story, it also explores the consequences of social inequities and injustices forced on children born out of wedlock due to reckless dalliances of nobles with women beneath their status. This theme parallels the national consequences from King Henry’s break with tradition to divorce Queen Catherine of Aragon in favor of marrying Anne Boleyn.
Songbird is a multi-layered story that weaves in various characters and their sub-plots into a tapestry rich with themes of love, revenge, coming-of-age, perseverance, and redemption. For the most part, the writing style, descriptions, and pacing are eloquent and lyrical like a song. One example of a unique and vivid description is how Bethan perceives the King when she first meets him as follows: “The giant was immense, and from his bright hair to the tissue-like fabric that made up his costume, he seemed to be fashion entirely of gold.” A memorable quote that resonated with me is as follows: “A cat may look at a king, but it upsets the natural order of things when the King looks at the cat.”
Songbird by Karen Heenan is a richly-layered story with engaging, memorable characters that will keep a reader turning the pages to find out what happens next. It is a journey back in time to Renaissance England with universal themes of love, self-discovery, and redemption relevant to modern times. Highly Recommended.
I had heard that Songbird was one of those rare books that if you are lucky, you may one day stumble across. When I saw that The Coffee Pot Book Club was taking on tour the novel that they had named — The Coffee Pot Book Club Book Of The Year 2020 — I knew that I could not miss out on the opportunity of reading this book.
Words cannot even begin…there are not enough adjectives in the dictionary to describe how amazing this novel is. It is consuming, engrossing, and so compelling that I stayed up half the night reading it. Hand on heart, I have never read a book like it. The author demands so much from her readers, I laughed, I cried, a cringed, I hoped, oh how I hoped that Bess would one day find the happiness she deserved. And I so hoped she would find what she was looking for with Tom. But circumstances tear them apart again and again and…Shh! I must not give away any spoilers because I don’t want to ruin this book for anyone. It is suffice to say that the story is…it’s bloody brilliant from start to finish.
This book has left a deep impression in my heart, maybe even in my soul. This is a story that I will never ever forget and it is a book that I am going to read over and over again, because that is the kind of book it is. Without a doubt, I really think that this is my all-time favourite book. I cannot see anything toppling Songbird from the number 1 position.
*I received a copy of this book from The Coffee Pot Book Club for review consideration.
The characters were strongly written, the plot was well written and flowed smoothly from page to page which made this book a real page turner!