Tonka > Recent Status Updates

Jane has watched enough queens rise and fall to believe that love is irrelevant. What matters is obedience, duty and survival
and everything else what women must sacrifice to exist close to power

“I know too much. It's as if I've gone behind the scenes of a masque and seen the machinery that makes the thunder and the wheels that turn to make the waves of the sea. I don't delight in the spectacle now that I have to put my weight on the wheels. I'm part of the machine, not the audience”

Tudor court feels like a place where performance has replaced authenticity and truth. Everyone knows what they’re expected to say, how to flatter the King and what those in power want to hear and what everyone needs to pretend in order to belong or survive.

And I’m thinking I’m not sure we have changed all that much?

Page 60 already obsessed 👑

I expected Boleyn Traitor to give me Tudor history! but I wasn’t expecting quite this much spying, gossip, intrigue and political machination. I’m completely hooked. Who knew that survival at Henry VIII’s court meant learning not only what you can and cannot say, but sometimes what you cannot even allow yourself to question

Page 268 really admire Ciara as a mother❤️ I love how protective she is of the children, especially her refusal to let the girls stay with Ryan overnight and how, somehow the baby is never quite available either 😁

There is something so satisfying about watching her become more strategic and trust her own instincts!

Motherhood can ask the impossible of women and this chapter captured that with such tenderness. I am in complete awe of her strength!

He’s messing with your head, my dear.
He knows this is stressing you out.
He’s playing mind games…
The longer this continues, the more worn down she will become, the more the fear will devour her. By the time she gets to court, she will barely be able to speak, let alone defend herself.

Page 187, pacing works well for me, but the writing itself hasn’t drawn me. I’m not reading this book with suspense, I’m reading it with recognition. I already understand the psychology of coercive control so Instead, I’m watching Ciara untangle the confusion, self-doubt and cognitive dissonance that comes with living in that kind of relationship.