Wendy J. Dunn is an Australian author, playwright and poet who has been obsessed by Anne Boleyn and Tudor History since she was ten-years-old. She is the author of three Tudor novels: Dear Heart, How Like You This?, the winner of the 2003 Glyph Fiction Award and 2004 runner up in the Eric Hoffer Award for Commercial Fiction, The Light in the Labyrinth, her first young adult novel, and Falling Pomegranate Seeds: The Duty of Daughters – the first part of her Katherine of Aragon story.
While she continues to have a very close and spooky relationship with Sir Thomas Wyatt, the elder, serendipity of life now leaves her no longer wondering if she has been channeling Anne Boleyn and Sir Tom for years in her writing, but considering the possibility of ancestral memory. Her own family tree reveals the intriguing fact that her ancestors – possibly over three generations – had purchased land from both the Boleyn and Wyatt families to build up their own holdings. Yes – Wendy’s ancestors knew the Wyatts and Boleyns personally.
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Wendy is married and the mother of three sons and one daughter—named after a certain Tudor queen, surprisingly, not Anne. She is also the grandmother of an amazing grandson. He is not even three and already knows who Henry VIII is and that he had a lot of wives.
Wendy’s published Tudor novels:
Dear Heart, How Like You This?
A woman who sees her destiny as England’s
Queen.
A King who destroys what he no longer wants.
A poet’s love that will never be forgotten.
A KING WHO WOULD NOT BE DENIED. A woman
who would be queen. And a gentle poet forced to watch helplessly as his one
true love slipped out of his arms forever. These are the elements in Wendy J.
Dunn’s poignant novel, Dear Heart, How Like You This?
Dear Heart tells the story of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII. The
novel is written in first person, from the point of view of Anne’s cousin, Sir
Thomas Wyatt. Tom has secretly loved Anne his entire life, but has always been
told he is not highly born enough to pursue her. He carefully masks his
feelings, especially after Anne catches the eye of the king, and remains at
Anne’s side as one of her staunchest friends and supporters. Then the
unthinkable happens. After marrying Anne, the king tires of her and falsely
accuses her of adultery. Imprisoned himself on the whim of the king’s arrogant
brother-in-law, Tom watches helplessly as his true love and his closest friends
go on trial for their lives…
Dear Heart is a novel that grips you before the end of the first sentence and
doesn’t let go until the bitter end. In Dunn’s more than capable hands, Anne
Boleyn comes to life, first as a whimsical child, then as a hurt and angry
teenager, then as a woman both frightened and exhilarated by the dangerous game
she is playing, and finally as a bruised-but not broken-victim of the king’s
cruelty. Through Anne’s tumultuous life, her cousin Thomas is a spellbinding
narrator, reporting the events around him with a reporter’s keen eye and a
poet’s tender heart.
“Though framed as an account of arguably the most famous of Henry VIII’s six wives, DEAR HEART, HOW LIKE YOU THIS? is far more than another re-telling of a well-trodden tale. For entwined with the glamorous, ultimately tragic, story of Anne Boleyn’s life and death, is that of an inherently good man’s struggle with the evils of his time, and of the toll that is often exacted of those who finds themselves immersed in the sweeping tides of historical change.” – C. W. Gortner.
The Light in the Labyrinth
A
Queen fights for her life.
A King denies his heart and soul.
A girl faces her true identity.
All things must come to an end—all things but love.
IN THE WINTER OF 1535, fourteen-year-old Kate Carey wants to escape her family home. She thinks her life will be so much better with Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife and the aunt she idolises. Little does Kate know that by going to attend Anne Boleyn she will discover love and a secret that will shake the very foundations of her identity. As an attendant to Anne Boleyn, Kate is swept up in events that see her witness her aunt’s darkest days. By the time winter ends, Kate will be changed forever.
“…The Light in the Labyrinth is quite the read – no matter the age of the reader. And yes, thanks to Kate, a new voice has been added to the well-known haunting melody – a voice that mellows and matures as the story evolves and yet retains a touch of bittersweet innocence right to the bloody, inevitable end.” – Anna Belfrage for The Review.
FALLING POMEGRANATE SEEDS: THE DUTY OF DAUGHTERS
Dońa Beatriz Galindo.
Respected scholar.
Tutor to royalty.
Friend and advisor to Queen Isabel of Castile.
Beatriz is an uneasy witness to the Holy War of Queen Isabel and her husband, Ferdinand, King of Aragon. A Holy War seeing the Moors pushed out of territories ruled by them for centuries.
The road for women is a hard one. Beatriz must tutor the queen’s youngest child, Catalina, and equip her for a very different future life. She must teach her how to survive exile, an existence outside the protection of her mother. She must prepare Catalina to be England’s queen.
A tale of mothers and daughters, power, intrigue, death, love, and redemption, in the end, Falling Pomegranate Seeds sings a song of friendship and life.
A MASTERPIECE ~ Charlie Fenton, The Tudor Society.
Wendy J. Dunn is an exceptional voice for Tudor fiction, and has a deep understanding of the era. Her words ring true and touch the heart, plunging the reader into a fascinating, dangerous and emotionally touching new world ~ Barbara Gaskell Denvil.
