The Seymour family was a gentry family that rose to prominence and nobility through their illustrious marriages. When we think about the Seymours and their marriages, the one marriage that shaped the future of the family is the marriage of Jane Seymour and King Henry VIII. But our story focuses on another Seymour daughter during the time of the Tudors. She was Jane’s sister who married three times and had numerous children. Her second marriage was to Gregory Cromwell, the son of Thomas Cromwell pushes Elizabeth Seymour straight into the middle of the Tudor court. Elizabeth soon learns that dark plots and conspiracies are afoot in the midst of religious change. Can Elizabeth and her family survive, or will the Tudor court be their downfall? Carol McGrath explores Elizabeth’s life in the Tudor court and in her family homes in her latest novel, “The Queen’s Sister.”

I would like to thank Carol McGrath and Headline Accent for sending me a copy of this novel. I have enjoyed the previous novels that I have read by Carol McGrath, so when I saw that she was exploring the world of the Tudors yet again, I was excited. I have heard of Elizabeth Seymour, but I did not know much about her story, so when Carol McGrath reached out and asked if I would be interested in reading and reviewing this novel, I was thrilled. 

We begin Elizabeth’s story in 1537, when she is about to marry her second husband, Gregory Cromwell. Her sister Jane has recently married King Henry VIII after the death of Anne Bullen, and now Jane is pregnant with hopefully Henry’s heir. Elizabeth remembers her first marriage to Sir Anthony Ughtred. She had two children with Anthony, a son named Henry and a daughter named Margery, but Anthony never met his daughter as he died while Elizabeth was pregnant. Elizabeth moves to Kexby Manor and learns to be Lady Ughtred as well as a widowed mother. 

Time passes, and her family decides that Elizabeth should remarry, and the man they have chosen for her is the son of Thomas Cromwell, Gregory Cromwell. Elizabeth and Gregory built a happy life full of love and many children, but life has a way of throwing curveballs. In this case, it was religious conspiracies, a former love, spies, the Pilgrimage of Grace, and the fall of Thomas Cromwell. Elizabeth has to navigate it all while looking after her family and her beloved Kexby Manor. 

Our protagonist, Elizabeth, is a hard-working noblewoman who might have been the inspiration for Hans Holbein’s “Portrait of a Lady,” whose story deserves to be told, and McGrath was the perfect author to tell her tale. It gives more depth to the Tudor era, especially during the reigns of Jane Seymour and Anna of Cleves. If you are a fan of reading novels about lesser-known members of the Tudor court, I highly suggest you read “The Queen’s Sister” by Carol McGrath.