THE WINCHESTER GOOSE by Judith Arnopp @JudithArnopp

5 of 5 stars

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How I discovered this book: I'm a fan of this author, and a tweet about this book made me choose it as my next read.

In a Nutshell: Two women, one rich and one poor, in Henry VIII's London.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It's set in the era during which Henry VIII was married to Anne of Cleves, then to Katherine Howard, finishing at the time of his marriage to Catherine Parr, though this is but a backdrop for Judith Arnopp's main story, which is told mainly in the first person points of view of two women leading very different lives.

Isabella Bourne was born into nobility, and, when young and unmarried, takes up  a place at court, along with her sister, the vivacious Eve.  She attends both queens.  The other main character is Joanie Toogood, the 'Winchester Goose' of the title.  This was how the prostitutes living in Southwark were known; her mother was a prostitute too, and led Joanie into the life when she was too young to protest.  What the two women have in common is their association with young rogue Francis Wareham; through certain events, their lives become inextricably linked.

I liked how Ms Arnopp placed Isabella as one of the women attending Katherine during her imprisonment, a clever idea and completely feasible; I assume those women were not named, in accounts of the time. This enabled us to see how Anne and Katherine were perceived by those around them.  The descriptions of Joanie's meagre life on the other side of the river (literally and metaphorically) sat in stark comparison, though Joanie did not seem any less happy than Isabella; they're both gutsy, likable characters, and their situations give a clear illustration of the lot of women in those days.

The story itself is inventive and unusual, and did not progress as I expected it to, at all - always a plus.  I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a cracking good tale set Tudor times.