Different Perspectives of Anne

*** This blog post is going to have spoilers about "Third." Be warned! :-) Don't read on if you do not want spoilers.
*** This blog post is going to have spoilers about "Third." Be warned! :-) Don't read on if you do not want spoilers.
*** This blog post is going to have spoilers about "Third." Be warned! :-) Don't read on if you do not want spoilers.

One thing I love about my books is the wonderful conversation they inspire. This has never been more true than with "Third." My other books, particularly "Strange Bedfellows" (which has the most reviews of my books by far), have led to some interesting discussions. "Third" definitely is taking the cake in depth of discussion so far, though. A few days ago, I posted a convo with Linda North.

I had another conversation earlier today with a friend of mine who has not read "Third" but is going to (once she gets her library books due soon read! ;-) ). Given her comments, I thought having a before/after conversation would be interesting. I'm not promising an "after" conversation, but I hope one will happen.

Anyway, my friend knows about this post and she is, shall we say, anti-Anne. Quite anti-Anne.

If you're new to "Third" and have no idea who this Anne is, let me slip the blurb in here for you:

Helen Franklin is horrified when her dying father leaves her a most unusual inheritance: a woman. Furthermore, the woman, Anne, is anything but ordinary. She is a time traveler with a tragic past. Helen tells herself she does not have time for Anne. Yalia, Helen's wife, has been distancing herself from Helen for three years, and Helen needs to decide if she wants to save their marriage.

Then the unexpected happens. A romantic relationship develops among Yalia, Anne and Helen. Can the three of them figure out their lives together, especially when time might be running out for Anne?

And here's the review that prompted my friend to say the things she did.

FINAL WARNING: *** This blog post is going to have spoilers about "Third." Be warned! :-)


OK, so you probably know that Benjamin Franklin is an important supporting character in "Third," but I haven't said publicly yet who Anne is. It is not a huge secret. Her identity is fairly easy to suss out in the first two chapters for people who know history well. And for people who don't, her identity is revealed in Chapter Three.

Anyway, Anne is Anne Boleyn (see portrait at right). Annnd here's the convo between my friend and me. Her part is in bold.

My biggest problem with the idea of this book is actually not the three-way relationship or even the time travel part, but the woman you chose to be your 'Anne'. I think I have a pretty good idea who she is, and while she was very smart and was able to have an entire system in the society of her time changed just for her, she was also a [bleep] and was not a friend of women. She looked for validation from men. Other women were there only to be the backs she climbed on on her way to the top. She was cruel to her husband's ex-wife and daughter. I will grant that her husband was the bigger [bleep], but she helped encourage him because it improved her standing in his eyes. Her fall was spectacular, and she pretty much reaped what she sowed. Her end was sad, and I did feel sorry for her then. Maybe you did address all of that in your book? I don't know.

It also got me thinking about the other women this Anne had a connection to in her time and was thinking that if the last three women in that group hadn't been obviously attracted to men, they would have been interesting contenders. All three had their lives ended prematurely in different ways. One of them lived a nice long time, but she was never allowed to have an romantic relationship or have children. One was young and silly but would have been traumatized enough to avoid men, and the other I think would have been the most interesting. She was smart, capable, yet had to submit all the time to what men wanted. Her one true love betrayed her with her stepdaughter. Then she died. Definitely an unfinished life!

I'll have to read your book though, I want to see how you pulled it off!

Yep, I grant Anne was cruel to Catherine of Aragon and Mary. That's addressed explicitly in the book. As for the other stuff, it's a matter of perspective and which historian you ask, although it's true Anne likely had no women friends except Lady Lee. That's in the book too. Anne didn't bother with society women's idle chatter.

Also, it's unclear if Catherine Parr's husband ever did anything with Elizabeth. May have, maybe not. That's why there's historical fic. One more thing about Anne, she was pretty much forced into doing what she did by her father. I maybe shouldn't say this (it's spoilerish) -- but after reading Tudor books, Anne realizes just how bad she was to Mary. She decides she would pick Mary over her own daughter Elizabeth to bring back to the present because she wants Mary's forgiveness so much. The ending has Anne getting Mary...kinda. You'll have to read to find out what I mean.

Well, it would be nice to have Mary I to have a redo of her life. Apparently she was a lot like Elizabeth when she was young: smart, sweet, nice. She was always nice to her younger sister until politics interfered. Emperor Shaddam IV said it best: blood is thicker than water, but politics is thickest of all! I may have not quoted exactly but you get the gist. If Mary lets go of her crystallized perspective on life, then she could grow into a new person.

As for Anne, her dad may have encouraged her to do it, but she threw herself into it. If she didn't want the prize so much, she could have had sex with Henry and told dear old dad, he made me get into bed with him, I didn't have a choice, and she would have been right. Henry would not have seen himself as an rapist; he believed enough in his charms to do that, but one doesn't refuse the king after the dance of courtship without a good reason! (I wonder if this would work, "Your Majesty, I have the clap," heh.) Men were real [bleep] back then, which brings me to Catherine P.'s husband. He may or may not have done something with Elizabeth, but his intent was clear, and once Catherine P. saw it for what it was, it had to hurt a lot.

Yeah, I have people wanting a sequel! Mary has always fascinated me. I would love to do something on her too, but I don't get the same "vibe" I do with Anne that Mary could be a lesbian. But, who knows. If I write a sequel to "Third," I imagine Mary would be in it. Probably as straight. Anyway, that's true Anne could've done all that. I can't imagine what it would've been like to be in her shoes, though. Hindsight is 20/20. And if she was a lesbian, I could see how it would be extremely easy for her to think all she had to do was not have sex for seven years and have a nice life. We have a young woman whose sister is sleeping with the king at the behest of their father, and then the sister is discarded. The father pins all his hopes on his second daughter. It must have been a confusing situation for Anne with no clear "right" path. You said men were real [bleep], and that's exactly right. We don't know what Thomas Boleyn may have threatened Anne with, or if he had more subtle ways of getting her to do his bidding. Anne was a powerless woman in a man's world, and like so many women before and after her, she lost her battle.

We don't have Anne's own words, so we'll never know why she did the things she did. "Third" is only one take (and not necessarily all what I believe, but what worked best for the story). Everyone has a different take on Anne, and that's one reason history can be frustrating and why there's that time-travel fascination to find out the truth.

Yeah it's hard to say about historical figures unless you can sit them down and interview them...and not even they know why they did some things sometimes!


Many people, historical or not, have no effing idea why they do the things they do. I don't sometimes ;-)

*** The conversation ended here, but I want to say a few more things about Anne Boleyn. She may have been a [bleep]. Or not. Or somewhere in between. From "Third," I present Tudor historian Helen Franklin's basic theory: 
 
Helen's theory, or as she called it, her wishful thought, was that Anne was a lesbian trying to make her way in a ruthless, heterosexual world. Helen had shared this theory with no one except Yalia, long ago. She had no shred of proof to back up her theory. But one question Helen would never need to ask: Was Anne guilty of the charges the king brought against her?
Also, from Helen's book, here is the small biographical summary of Anne:
Anne Boleyn (?- executed 1536): Anne spent much of her adolescence at the court of the French king Francis I. She returned to the British court full of wit, grace and charm. She caught the eye of Henry Percy, and they secretly were engaged. Anne also became a lady in waiting to Queen Catherine. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey found out about the secret engagement and forbade a marriage. Percy was exiled from court, and Anne's father, Thomas, forced her to focus on the king. Anne's sister, Mary, was the king's mistress, and Thomas Boleyn had learned a valuable lesson. Mary had given her body up too quickly. Thomas ordered Anne to flirt with the king, to toy with his emotions and nothing more. This worked like a charm for seven years, to the point where Henry VIII turned his back on the Catholic Church. Henry would never get free of Catherine if the church had a say in it, so he founded his own religion. He married Anne in the eyes of the Church of England. Anne was pregnant and gave birth to a girl, the future Elizabeth I. Henry was sorely disappointed but envisioned more pregnancies. They came, in the form of miscarriages. A frustrated Henry contrived a scheme accusing Anne of witchcraft, incest and adultery. Anne was beheaded in 1536, after a mere three years of marriage and shortly after her predecessor Catherine's death.