Anyone want to talk about Five Wounds with me? (warning: contains spoilers)

[JeanneTheRabidFeminist]

I know at least a few of us are reading this, so I figured we could do with a thread. If you're not reading it, it's Tudor historical fiction and it's here. It's marketed as YA, if such things matter to you.

Disclaimer: this is one of my favourite historical periods and (as people on the Wolf Hall threads know) I can bang on about it forever. But I bloody loved this book and am only slightly disappointed I haven't yet found any historical bits to quibble over. I did try quite hard.

Soooo .... I'll just sit here twiddling my thumbs until you all rock up, shall I?

I don't think people had quite the same sense of public and private space, though. We automatically think of affairs being clandestine, but that is partly because we live in houses where there are private rooms, and locks, and where we can expect to keep things hidden. I think that must make a difference?

I read this last week and really enjoyed it. I thought the swing from being a nun to getting all swoony was mostly just being a teenager and her own circumstances. After Lord Middleham died, I thought she was so bereft that she wasn't able to withstand Francis. Anyway, very glad I bought it and good to hear that the historical stuff stands up.

The grandmother was wonderful.

I really liked the fact that the people in the book were still clinging to the old religion, it was horribly jarring for people when the abbeys closed, they had been the main source of what we would now call welfare, and it really wasn't replaced. The old religion had also provided the tempo of the day and the year.

I really enjoyed the book, the era fascinates me and I think was really well described. Nan's affair was also believable, when one considers that most of life was lived with an audience, especially in noble households, there was almost no privacy as we understand it.

Hello, I just wanted to namechange briefly and pop in and say thank you to everyone for this lovely thread! Also, reviews keep popping up on Amazon, Goodreads and Mumsnet books by people I don't recognise, so I wanted to post here to say thank you for the wonderful reviews, in case any of them are by people on here. It feels pretty incredible that people are actually READING my book, let alone enjoying it

Re the points about motivation and Nan's rapid changes of focus, I have taken this on board. For me this was about how it felt to be a teen - being utterly consumed by one person or thing that can suddenly shift to someone else - but I could definitely have done things to make it more believable, so I will bear this in mind for future books.

The privacy issue is an interesting one too. There's a fabulous (but expensive) book, Locating Privacy In Tudor London, that talks about differences in how privacy was perceived and attained when people lived a much more communal life. (I tend to imagine Francis habitually bribing servants when he wanted things kept from his father, though.)

Very interesting to hear the stories about real-life nuns! For what it's worth, I don't think being a nun would have suited Nan at all - it's more that of the two lives she knows, it's the one she finds preferable - the nunnery represents escape from overbearing male authority rather than an actual vocation.

Re the sequel, it's underway, but I have to finish the next book (not about Nan, but about Norfolk's daughter, Mary Howard) next! There is definitely a grandmother-related backstory that I want to write, too, but that is a little way down the line.

Thanks again for reading my book

it's more that of the two lives she knows, it's the one she finds preferable - the nunnery represents escape from overbearing male authority rather than an actual vocation.

Yes, and this is really clear from the book. The abuse she's suffered at the hands of her father and grandfather, compared to the gentle and kind treatment she received from her aunt the Abbess..., well, I know which I'd have preferred! The wrench when the convent was shut down by the commissioners for her and all the other women there must have been awful, even with the small stipend they received.

And you do wonder what Nan's aunt is actually going to do, because she said she'd go back to her father but I'm not sure she could really put up with that

Maybe we should find out in the sequel!

Ooh, yay, Uncle Norfolk again!

That's a good point about nunneries, as I understand it from various books, if you were of a certain social standing and had enough children, "giving" one to the church was not uncommon.

Yes, Norfolk has endless possibilities

I've sometimes thought it would be interesting to write a boarding school-type story set in a medieval nunnery. Only with great possibilities when noble ladies went to stay in them for a while (as Mary Shelton seems to have done at one point after her affair with the king. She also had a sister who was a nun, apparently).

Ooh, that would be so interesting, Katharine. I would want to read it.

You could write the story of a noble oblate, why she chose that path, or why it was chosen for her, how it compared with her secular life, etc. Great potential!

It's the intensity of the closed society, too - always makes for good drama!

Just wanted to pop in again and say thank you for the reviews that have appeared on Amazon/Goodreads/Mumsnet since I last posted, in case any of them are by people on here - thank you very much for your kind words, if so!

Also, just to add, I have a few spare paperback copies now that I can send out to book bloggers/vloggers if anyone knows anyone who might like one - just PM me.

Thanks