In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II. But although Protestants don’t have saints, they have martyrs, and Jane, in the end, is determined to be one.

Jane has one chance to escape the headsman: Convert to Catholicism. Now Queen, Mary is loath to execute 16-year-old Jane, but succumbs to pressure from her Catholic allies. Jane reigns for nine days, but her court evaporates when Mary musters a large army. Jane at first refuses the crown, but, a devout Protestant, she’s persuaded that the accession of Mary would mean the country’s reversion to Catholicism. As Edward lies dying of consumption exacerbated by a little arsenic, the Duke prompts him to name Jane as his successor. The Seymours’ replacement, the Duke of Northumberland, seeks to circumvent Henry’s will, which provides for the succession of princesses Mary and Elizabeth. Frances’ plan to betroth Jane to Edward fizzles. After Katherine’s death, Jane narrowly escapes getting caught up in the doomed machinations of the Seymours, protectors of boy-king Edward VI. Frances brutally punishes her on the slightest pretext, and Jane is happy to escape to the household of Queen Katherine Parr, King Henry’s sixth wife.

A Tudor Mommie Dearest, Frances hardens her heart against Jane for failing to be born male.

A minor throughout, Jane is subject to the whims of corrupt and ambitious adults bent on exploiting her bloodline to advance their own agenda. In setting her first novel around Lady Jane, daughter of Henry VIII’s niece, Frances, Weir must surmount two major historical constraints first, that Jane’s fate is known, and second, that Jane, though precocious and unusually well-schooled for a girl of the time, is a necessarily passive character. Who better to rehabilitate her than Weir ( Queen Isabella, 2005, etc.), author of numerous works of popular history, five of which concern the Tudor dynasty. Lady Jane is often viewed as merely pathetic. Weir’s erudition in matters royal finds fictional expression in the story of England’s briefest reigning sovereign, Lady Jane Grey.

Novel innocent traitor