The Last Tudor; The Austere Academy

Finally, something new! I always (well, almost always) enjoy Philippa Gregory's novels, and I enjoyed this one. It was written in the three points of view of the Grey sisters: first, poor doomed Jane, who was crowned Queen against her will, married off to Guildford Dudley, then imprisoned and executed by Queen Mary for treason. It then switched to Katherine Grey, her younger sister, and that was the longest (and saddest) part of the book. Katherine falls in love with Ned Seymour, and they marry in secret. Katherine and Ned are both imprisoned in the Tower when Queen Elizabeth finds out, and Katherine ends up bearing two sons for Ned, who should, by all rights, have been heirs to the throne. Elizabeth's jealousy gets in the way, and she ruthlessly separates the family. Katherine ends up wasting away, dying of a broken heart, no doubt. And finally, little Mary Grey, the last sister, a dwarf. She actually finds love, marrying (again, without the Queen's permission) a guard named Thomas Keyes. Elizabeth, of course, has them both arrested when she finds out and imprisoned, and Thomas ends up dying before little Mary is freed. It really painted Elizabeth in a paranoid, tyrannical light.

A few months back I started rereading the Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, and I got to book four ("The Miserable Mill") before my reading adventures took me elsewhere. After finishing "The Last Tudor", I didn't feel like reading any of the other books I have checked out from work, so I returned to these. Book Five, "The Austere Academy", finds the three Baudelaire orphans in a horrid boarding school. They do meet some new friends: Isadora and Duncan, who also lost their parents and their triplet brother in a fire and are heirs to a fortune. Count Olaf shows up, disguised as a gym teacher, and spends his nights running the Baudelaires ragged so they don't get any sleep and flunk their classes. Guess who has generously offered to take the orphans in if they get expelled from school? The night before their big tests, Isadora and Duncan offer to take the Baudelaires place and run so they can rest and study for their exams. Count Olaf ends up kidnapping them instead and the poor Baudelaires are once again homeless, only now they are worried for their friends.