Samantha Burnell does a good job of this. The trick with this type of story is to make the fictional aspects sound legitimate. The Tudor Heresy is a short story introducing what I assume will be a series of fictionalised historical books set in 16th century Tudor England.

With a little work the story could be improved immensely, but as it now stands, I cannot give it more than a 3-star rating. This story is evidently intended as the introduction to the other books in the series that will follow. I need to hear, see, and experience the raw emotions mentioned in the story. I would like to see some serious effort made to correct the problems, especially things that would flesh out the story. There are a few typos in the book, and it is not formatted very well creating a distraction for the reader. I don’t think it is unfair to the author to say that this is not a book, but more like a detailed plot the author intends to flesh out on the second pass. It is simply not enough for the author to say that the character hates, envies, or is afraid of another character. There are strong emotions involved in the relationships between most of the characters, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what was driving each of them. I even made a few notes which didn’t seem to help very much.

After reading a few pages, I found myself going back to read paragraphs and trying to discover who the characters were and their relationship to each other. After viewing the cover of her book, I began reading with great expectations because I like historical novels. Samantha Burnell is a writer with potential, and it is evident in her excellent command of language and grammar.

The Tudor Heresy by Samantha Burnell