To Die For
by Sandra Byrd
For a fan of both Anne Boleyn and Sandra Byrd reading To Die For was a given. In this novel Sandra Byrd shows us the deep
friendship and unwavering loyalty of Anne Boleyn and Meg Wyatt. The novel begins with two naive young women
dreaming of when they will be informed of a marriage that is beneficial and
agreeable to their families. Byrd begins
with Anne’s life while she is still a girl and in doing so is able to avoid the
web of characterization that haunts the depiction of Anne Boleyn. Anne grows into adulthood unencumbered by the
traditional descriptions of her as scheming, heartless and coldly ambitious and
instead Byrd’s reader is given a more human Anne. Anne is just a girl who grows into a woman
and falls in love, madly and passionately, with a powerful, but selfish man.
Throughout the novel Meg Wyatt is in Anne’s constant
attendance. Meg has a sense of duty to
her Anne that goes beyond friendship; Meg feels that Anne needs her guidance
and advice, but also her protection. As
we all know, even Meg, could not save Anne from fate.
Truly the reader is able to see another side of Anne through
the eyes of her dear friend, Meg Wyatt, who is the protagonist of To Die For and whose story the novel is
wrapped around. What this reader enjoyed
most was being able to see Anne through the eyes of a woman who truly cared for
her and also to appreciate how difficult it is for women to inspire such
friendship in other women. In this way
Anne became much more tangible than heretofore and I thank Sandra Byrd for
offering a new humanistic look into the life of a woman I have long
admired. In fact, the success of To Die
For is not in the story of Anne, but in the story of Meg, a loyal friend who
was led on an unfamiliar path to a life that she never thought she wanted; but
as Meg lives on so does Anne and with this Byrd offers her reader another
assurance that her death was not in vain, but a signal that a new world was
just over the horizon.
This review qualifies for the following challenges:
Historical Fiction Book Review #28Tudor Book Blog Reading Challenge #24
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