The Queen's Fool

Cat is different and in the times of Henry VIII such differences matter. When she follows her sister Meg who has been taken from the convent where they both live to London, Cat finds that without the shelter of the convent walls where she is known life can be cruel. Fortunately she meets Jacques who himself is different, although not in the same way and together they become involved in a plot to disrupt the peace meeting of King Henry and King Francois of France at the Cloth of Gold tented city near Calais.

This is an exciting adventure set against the background of the Tudor court with a plot that twists and turns very intriguingly. Jacques is not really Jacques but Isabelle and has his/her own back story to complicate matters. Both are well written characters although Cat’s ‘baby talk’ is increasingly annoying and slightly patronising and unnecessary to explain her difference. Attitudes to a child with learning disabilities are made clear, although Queen Katharine for example simply finds Cat’s ability to sing and play her bird whistle attractive in her own right. There is a real sense of history and of place within the story and enough of the political background to make clear mutual distrust between England and France at that time.