New Today: The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory

Philippa Gregory is best known for a staggering pile of well-researched and loved historical novels, Gregory is perhaps best known for 2002’s The Other Boleyn Girl, made into a successful movie in 2008 starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Eric Bana.

Gregory, who was born in Kenya, holds a doctorate in 18th century literature, didn’t set out to be an author. As she told January Magazine last year, “I never really wanted to be a writer, I wrote little stories from early childhood, but I did not know I would make my living from writing fiction until my first book was accepted by a publisher. Even then, I thought I would do it alongside my chosen profession of teaching history. But the history post never came up, and the next book did.”

Fifteen novels later, Gregory is a force to reckoned with in international publishing and her latest, The Red Queen (Simon and Schuster) is an event. Gregory’s biggest fans will rejoice to find that here, once again, the author is revisiting the Tudors. This time out she fictionalizes the life of Henry VIII’s grandmother, Margaret Beaufort who, Gregory posits, was relentless in her drive to see her son on the throne.