As youngest daughter to the Spanish monarchs and crusaders King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Catalina, princess of Wales and of Spain, was promised to the English Prince Arthur when she was three. She leaves Spain at 15 to fulfill her destiny as queen of England, where she finds true love with Arthur (after some initial sourness) as they plot the future of their kingdom together. Arthur dies young, however, leaving Catalina a widow and ineligible for the throne. Before his death, he extracts a promise from his wife to marry his younger brother Henry in order to become queen anyway, have children and rule as they had planned, a situation that can only be if Catalina denies that Arthur was ever her lover. Gregory's latest (after Earthly Joys) compellingly dramatizes how Catalina uses her faith, her cunning and her utter belief in destiny to reclaim her rightful title. By alternating tight third-person narration with Catalina's unguarded thoughts and gripping dialogue, the author presents a thorough, sympathetic portrait of her heroine and her transformation into Queen Katherine. Gregory's skill for creating suspense pulls the reader along despite the historical novel's foregone conclusion. Agent, Melanie Jackson. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Best-selling historical novelist Gregory returns to the world of Tudor England that she explored in books like The Other Boleyn Girl. This time, her subject is Katherine of Aragon, the 16-year-old daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. Katherine knows from a very young age that she is promised to marry Prince Arthur, heir to the English throne, and she never wavers in her conviction that she will one day become queen. That determination is sorely tested, however, upon Arthur's premature death after two years of marriage. Although she loves her husband (a passion that is kept hidden from the court), Katherine agrees to his dying wish that he be declared impotent so that she can marry his younger brother, Henry, and eventually reign as queen. This fascinating portrait of a proud, intelligent, and passionate woman captures the political turmoil of the era; a secondary plot involving Katherine's single-minded filial devotion to her parents makes her an even more vulnerable and complex character. An excellent choice for historical fiction collections.-Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State Univ., Mankato (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.