A DEFIANT WOMAN

The second in Olson’s Modern Tudor series, following An Inconvenient Wife (2024), brings his children into Hank Tudor’s messed-up marital history.

Kate Parker had every reason to know what she was getting into when she married billionaire Hank Tudor. Yet his former assistant somehow seems surprised when their wedded bliss turns sour shortly after their honeymoon, much as it did in his five previous marriages. It’s hard to know who exactly is the eponymous woman in this updated version of King Henry VIII’s life. Supposedly strong and self-sufficient Kate comes scurrying back to Hank when he insists he needs her help locating Lizzie, his kidnapped daughter. Nan Tudor, his second wife, has better reasons to come when called: She’s Lizzie’s mother, and the person who contacts her is the kidnapper, not Hank. Still, she spends as much time resenting Hank for forcing her to leave Lizzie in his care as she does searching for her daughter. His fourth wife, doormat Anna, lets Hank walk all over her. And wife number five has already been killed off in Olson’s previous volume. In her author’s note, Olson mentions that people complain either that she stays too close to Henry’s saga or that she strays too far. Actually, she does both. She includes details that make no story sense just because they happened in history, like Hank’s affair with Jeanne, a stand-in for Jane Seymour. She also invents details that make no historical sense, like Anna’s same-sex marriage to Joan. But the main problem is that none of the wives is a sympathetic figure, and listening to them whine is like hearing Elon Musk’s baby mamas complain about him. Well, duh?

A royal mess.