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Janet Wertman

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Jane the Quene (The Seymour Saga Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Janet Wertman (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.5 911 ratings

Book 1 of 3: The Seymour Saga

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All Jane Seymour wants is a husband; but when she catches the eye of a volatile king, she is pulled deep into the Tudor court's realm of plot and intrigue....

England. 1535. Jane Seymour is 27 years old and increasingly desperate for the marriage that will provide her a real place in the world. She gets the perfect opportunity to shine when the court visits Wolf Hall, the Seymour ancestral manor. With new poise born from this event, it seems certain that her efficiency and diligence will shine through and finally attract a suitor.

Meanwhile, King Henry VIII is 45 and increasingly desperate for a son to secure his legacy. He left his first wife, a princess of Spain, changing his country's religion in the process, to marry Anne Boleyn -- but she too has failed to deliver the promised heir. As Henry begins to fear he is cursed, Jane Seymour's honesty and innocence conjure redemption. Thomas Cromwell, an ambitious clerk who has built a career on strategically satisfying the King's desires, sees in Jane the perfect vehicle to calm the political unrest that threatens the country: he engineers the plot that ends with Jane becoming the King's third wife.Jane believes herself virtuous and her actions justified, but early miscarriages shake her confidence and hopes.

How can a woman who has done nothing wrong herself deal with the guilt of how she unseated her predecessor?

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

"One of the Best Books of 2016" - Open Letters Monthly; Finalist, 2016 Novel of the Year - Underground Book Reviews; Semi-Finalist, 2017 M.M. Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction; Readers' Award, Chill With a Book; Honoree, BRAG Medallion.
"Wertman describes the pageantry, gowns, and architecture of pre-Elizabethan England; presents an ample cast of nobles and ladies-in-waiting; and exposes the tense religious turmoil and malicious political machinations of the Tudor court, led by dastardly Thomas Cromwell.This enticing, historically accurate story lends immediacy to the events." - Publishers Weekly

"A touching and insightful reading experience." - Historical Novels Review
"In her remarkable debut novel, Janet Wertman comes as close to capturing this elusive figure as any novelist has yet done." - Open Letters Monthly, an Arts and Literature Review
"Janet Wertman meets the challenge of writing a story with a predetermined end, yet maintaining a hold on her audience until the last page is turned" - The Review
"Janet Wertman delivers pages of beautiful prose in a well-researched first book...Freaking amazing." - Underground Book Reviews
"This is an author who is fiercely passionate about her subject matter and respects that even the smallest details merit her attention." - Historical Fiction Reader
"What a delight this book is! ... I think any reader would enjoy the book and highly recommend it!" - The Freelance History Writer Notes and Reviews
"Wertman brings what I have always thought of as the 'dull and simple' queen to beautiful light, breathing personality, honour and duty to Jane's background and time in court." - The Spiral Tower of Inky Doom review page
"[A] thoughtful depiction of Jane Seymour...gives readers a compelling story." - Nancy Bilyeau, Author of The Crown, The Chalice and The Tapestry, an award-winning Tudor-mystery trilogy published by Simon and Schuster.

About the Author

By day, Janet Ambrosi Wertman is a freelance grantwriter for great nonprofits. By night, she writes historical fiction - she has harbored a passion for the Tudor era since she was eight years old and her parents let her stay up late to watch The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R. Janet lives in Pacific Palisades, California with one husband, two dogs and three children. Her debut novel, Jane the Quene, is the first book in the Seymour Saga trilogy.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01DB65TH8
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Janet Wertman; 1st edition (April 14, 2016)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 14, 2016
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2692 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 328 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0997133813

Best Sellers Rank: #120,105 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #20 in Biographical Literary Fiction
- #115 in Historical Biographical Fiction
- #149 in Biographical Fiction (Kindle Store)

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4.5 911 ratings

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Janet Wertman

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Janet Ambrosi Wertman grew up within walking distance of three bookstores and a library on Manhattan's Upper West Side - and she visited all of them regularly. Her grandfather was an antiquarian bookdealer who taught her that there would always be a market for quirky, interesting books. He was the one who persuaded Janet's parents to send her to the French school where she was taught to aspire to long (grammatically correct) sentences as the hallmark of a skillful writer. She lived that lesson until she got to Barnard College. Short sentences were the rule there. She complied. She reached a happy medium when she got to law school - complicated sentences alternating with short ones in a happy mix.

Janet spent fifteen years as a corporate lawyer in New York, she even got to do a little writing on the side (she co-authored The Executive Compensation Answer Book, which was published by Panel Publishers back in 1991). But when her first and second children were born, she decided to change her lifestyle. She and her husband transformed their lives in 1997, moving to Los Angeles and changing careers. Janet became a grantwriter (and will tell anyone who will listen that the grants she's written have resulted in more than $20 million for the amazing non-profits she is proud to represent) and took up writing fiction.

There was never any question about the topic of the fiction: Janet has harbored a passion for the Tudor Kings and Queens since her parents let her stay up late to watch the televised Masterpiece Theatre series (both The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R) when she was *cough* eight years old. One of the highlights of Janet's youth was being allowed to visit the Pierpont Morgan Library on a day when it was closed to the public and examine (though not touch!) books from Queen Elizabeth's personal library and actual letters that the young Princess Elizabeth (technically Lady Elizabeth...) had written.

Janet is deep into writing the first book of her next trilogy, which takes up where the Seymours left off to illustrate the life of Elizabeth I. Janet also runs a blog (www.janetwertman.com) where she posts interesting takes on the Tudors, and she’s part of a group of novelists from Southern California who offer interesting panels and discussions to libraries around the state.

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4.5 out of 5

911 global ratings

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Sheri O'Neill

Great listen

Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2024

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I listened to the audio version, which was narrated by the author herself. It was a well-written book with many of the historical elements kept true to history. However, there is much we don't know about Jane Seymour and we definitely don't know the inner workings of the marriage between her and King Henry VII. It was a delightful read and gave me something to think about in regards to Queen Jane. I find her the most mysterious of the Queen's as she was Queen for so little and we know very little about her time on the throne.

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Robert H

Enjoyable book to read

Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2022

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I like studying the Royal Tree of England and have studied several sources dealing with Henry VIII and his wives. Henry wasn't a bad guy till he got angry with you then the past meant nothing. It was off with your head. Very final. The author admits to taking some flexibility with the actual facts but the overall content basically follows what happened. The conversations between Henry and Jane could not be word-for-word but the two did meet and they did marry and they did produce a son. Jane met the requirements of a Queen during that time. Good for her. I found the book easy to read, interesting and recommend it to those who find enjoyment in tales from the Royals of old.

One person found this helpful

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Olivia Longueville

A great novel that will change your perception of Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s third wife

Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2020

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This thoughtful and beautiful depiction of Jane Seymour gives readers a detailed, interesting, and captivating story about Jane Seymour, who is often the least liked queen among all of King Henry VIII’s wife due to her role (unintentional, as the author shows masterfully) in sending her predecessor to the scaffold. Many imagine Jane as a dull, plain, and undereducated woman, and it is true that compared to Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, Jane’s education was not stellar. However, Jane was definitely not stupid and had a capable mind that needed to be made a little bit more sophisticated – we can see Jane as a clever woman starting from the Tudor court’s arrival in Wulfhall and ending with the tragic scene of her death after Edward VI is born.

There are a lot of unanswered questions how a shy, undereducated, simple-minded person could catch the eye of the lustful Henry VIII. The author provided us with answers to these questions, which are especially obvious in scenes when Anne loses her child and what Henry says later, in scenes when Henry courts Jane, and so on. The previously unknown story of Jane’s courtship with the monarch comes alive and, seemingly, true to history, portrayed in the most vibrant colors. As a fan of Anne Boleyn, I can say that it was painful for me to see her lose her son and know that she died because of the phone charges Cromwell leveled against her, but I am glad that Jane did have to deal with the guilt of what happened to her unfortunate predecessor. Jane does not come across as someone who stepped over the rivers of innocent blood just became she craved to be the Queen of England. This is possible thanks to the author’s writing skills!

2 people found this helpful

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Kathleen Ingram

Fine Read

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2016

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[...]
4.5+ stars and a fine and enjoyable book. Moving between Jane and Thomas Cromwell was a bit distracting for me, as well as a tiny bit of a struggle making Jane vivid as a character. Her sharing a love of herbs with Henry was a tiny bit of a stretch, but the author made it work.

Jane the Quene was much more enjoyable than I thought it would be since I am, and always have been a Boleyn fan. Janet Wertman came very close, indeed, to making Jane likable if not lovable. It probably was difficult, as the Seymours are not that enjoyable all by themselves. (Well let me digress there, and say that Elizabeth Seymour was very interesting to me in her marriage to Gregory Cromwell.)

Jane became much more vital as a character, of course after her marriage and her death was definitely poignant. Henry is always Henry, but I am looking forward to some more glimpses into Elizabeth's marriage to Gregory Cromwell, as well as the other Seymours who will be spotlighted in the rest of the series.

Very enjoyable and recommended.

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Mercedes Rochelle

More maneuvering than naivete

Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2016

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In this new book and part one of a Seymour trilogy, Janet Wergman has taken on the unenviable task of turning a “boring” woman into an interesting study. Did the name Plain Jane originally come from her? Any basic study of Henry VIIIs wives tend to give Jane short shrift as the antidote to the exciting and tempestuous Anny Boleyn. And of course, Henry loved her the rest of his life because he didn’t have the opportunity to get tired of her. Oh, and she gave birth to his heir.

But there were a lot of unanswered questions in the Jane Seymour story. How could a shy, unspoiled, sheltered girl find herself in the compromising position of wanton replacement for a pitiful queen about to be executed? And with such haste! There have been so many fictional assertions that Henry married her with a day or two of Anne’s beheading, that I had to go back and track the passage of time between Anne’s execution (May 10), Jane’s betrothal to Henry (May 20), and their formal wedding (May 30). The author helps us along by dating every section, including the time. Yes, it was hasty but Henry wasn’t sitting at her house waiting for the cannon to go off so he could marry her, which I remember from a long ago story. But still, it took some explaining to show how Jane got to this point, and Wergman has done a good job giving Jane a little ambition after all, and a rather sweet account of her early meetings with the King. It was all so innocent and comforting that I no trouble accepting it.

As things got more and more complicated, Jane’s ambitions (or love?) got the better of her and she seemed to lose focus. She seemed to be a little confused as to what she was expecting out of this relationship, but as usual Henry was in charge and she could just go along for the ride. It helped that Jane didn’t really like her cousin Queen Anne anyway, so it wasn’t all that difficult to see a tiny bit of vindictiveness in her actions. Throughout, Jane’s brothers were most annoying, and it was good to see her get the upper hand in the end, forcing them to admit that she wasn't such a nonentity after all. She didn’t particularly appreciate being used to further their aims; on the other hand, she bought into their conspiracy of manipulating the king’s affections. It’s interesting to wonder at what point it felt OK to hanker after the crown, and more than once Jane thought she might have overplayed her game. For by this point, it seemed more like maneuvering than naivete, and I lost a little respect for her.

Although there no surprises (and shouldn’t have been, I think), we do get a full three-dimensional depiction of this not uncomplicated woman. I didn’t find her overly likeable, but she is capable of capturing our sympathy. I found myself rooting for her, even though I like her predecessor. She had her own story to tell, after all, and secured a foothold in history.

17 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

harnden03

Very interesting book

Reviewed in Canada on April 15, 2021

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This book certainly shows that politics haven't changed a bit over the centuries. Every person in power is only in it for themselves, and maybe family. The intricate workings of the court of Henry VIII, and the plotting of his courtiers, was amazing. I found it so interesting. The punishments for various wrong doings were horrific, but I suppose back then pretty normal. Henry wasn't depicted as quite the tyrant he became, maybe that came after Jane died. In
A fascinating book about a really important woman, because she had a son. But still not as well known as Anne Boleyn. She didn't die as dramatically. But it was interesting to learn about her short life. In

Lougrahamii

Great book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 18, 2022

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Saw this book recommended in Tudor group on FB so thought I’d give it a try as not much is written about Queen Jane.
Absolutely loved the writing style of the author. Found it really easy to read and whilst she made a few assumptions/ choices for the story (as explained at the back), it’s a fiction novel so totally accepted that and made for a great read.
Definitely want to read the other two in the series.
Highly recommended as an easy historical fiction novel.

3 people found this helpful

belen eguinoa

Jane de quene

Reviewed in Spain on September 1, 2020

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So fluent, easy to read.
Kept me engaged from first line to the end.
It makes you feel close the characters and takes you to the ancient times in all its details.
Very entertaining.