This melodrama covers three years, from the rise of Catherine Howard to her beheading, and is told in the first-person voice of Katherine Tylney, Her Majesty's actual companion in the court of Henry VIII. Such an intimate perspective contributes to the appeal of this long yet quickly moving story, which covers every aspect of the young ladies' lives, from servants' quarters to the throne room, where happiness and fealty were, frankly, facades. Likewise, there isn't much literary gold to scratch off to get to the intrigue, and artistic license is taken with some negligible historical facts, but none of this inhibits a good, juicy story. The modern language will work for any but the most loyal Tudor, and the 500-year-old platitudes will be recognizable to any viewer of reality television, where "gossip is a snake, ready to strike the innocent indiscriminately." Although the queen's need for "compensating with accessories" and sex for the "dullness of the marriage bed" doesn't end well for her, it is royally riveting for the reader.

This novel offers a sympathetic account of the friends surrounding Cat, better known as Catherine Howard, Henry VIIIs fifth wife. Kitty, the narrator, is swept up in conspiracies and affairs as she struggles to understand what loyalty, love, and friendship demand. The modern prose can at times feel anachronistic, but the tone is lively, the settings are vivid, and the protagonist is sympathetic and believably portrayed.

The short life and times of Henry VIII's fifth wife, as seen through the eyes of her friend. Cat Howard styles herself Queen of Misrule in the Duchess of Norfolk's maidens' chamber (a misnomer if ever there was one). When Cat is selected to be one of Anne of Cleves' ladies-in-waiting, she soon catches the king's eye, and the rest, as they say, is history. Cat rescues mousy friend Kitty to attend her in her chambers, giving Kitty and readers an intimate view of that history. Hewing closely to what little is known about Howard's circumstances, Longshore allows Kitty to thread the maze of alliances that was the court of Henry VIII. She concentrates on domestic details while brushing with broad strokes the politics of the men's world. Kitty's narration is formal, but her language is modern, a balance between authenticity and readability that is mostly successful. Her sense of her own powerlessness, and by extension all women's, even the queen's, comes through clearly. The mounting terror as lusty, luxury-loving Cat's fortunes fall is palpable, as is the sense that the queen is no innocent. The author's adherence to historical detail is admirable, clashing with both title and cover, which imply far more froth than readers will find between the covers. A substantive, sobering historical read, with just a few heaving bodices. (Historical fiction. 13 & up)