Philippa Gregory’s The Boleyn Inheritance (Isis, unabridged, tapes £22.99, CDs £32.99 from 0800 7315637) is an accomplished sequel to her bestselling The Other Boleyn Girl. Gregory has a knack of unearthing unknown aspects of familiar history. Anne Boleyn’s sister Mary – Henry VIII’s mistress before her ill-fated sibling took on the dangerous role of England’s first lady – was the subject of the first book; this time it is the reality of Anne of Cleves.

She is transformed from the “Flanders Mare” of legend to an attractive, level-headed 24-year-old who must cope with learning a new language in a new country as well as an overweight, all-but-impotent tyrant with a suppurating leg, all with no better preparation than the strict advice on avoiding any appearance of wantonness beaten into her by her sadistic mother.

She is contrasted to her scatty successor, Katherine Howard, who falls victim with horrible inevitability to Henry’s arrogance and paranoia. The narrative is told in three voices, Anne’s, Katherine’s and that of Jane, Lady Rochester, wife of the Boleyn brother with whom Anne was accused of incest, and who was executed with her.

Their different characters – intelligent, honest Anne, innocently silly Katherine and conniving but ghost-haunted Jane – come over with sharp reality because of the wonderfully contrasted voices of the three readers, Candida Gubbins, Emma Powell and Lucy Stott.

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