Catherine of Aragon by Giles Tremlett - Book 12

From Amazon's Booklist:

The daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Catherine was already one of the most learned women in Europe when, still in her teens, she married Arthur, Prince of Wales. His death a few weeks later left her stranded in England until she married King Henry VIII in 1509. Henry’s disappointment over the lack of a son to inherit the throne and his fascination with one of Catherine’s ladies, Anne Boleyn, are used to explain what went wrong with an initially happy union; but Tudor-era politics are never so simple. Tremlett deftly takes the reader through all the twists and turns, and shows us a woman who, rather than being a passive victim, was fully the equal of her husband in conviction and determination. --Mary Ellen Quinn

I've always been fascinated by the Tudors, and read a lot of fiction on the period, so it was interesting to read a non-fiction portrayal of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first wife. Former Guardian journalist Giles Tremlett tells the story well, bringing the known historical facts to life beautifully, and I knew much more about Catherine at the end than I did when I started.  It was a gripping read, every bit as exciting as the fictionalized portraits of that era. One of the best I've read so far in this challenge.