Alison Weir
The Boleyn Secret

Tuesday 23 June 2026, 7.00pm
Essex Record Office, Wharf Road, Chelmsford, CM2 6YT

Sunday Times best-selling historical novelist Alison Weir gives a talk about her spellbinding new novel, The Boleyn Secret. At twelve years old, Kate Carey attends her aunt, Queen Anne Boleyn, to the scaffold. Weir explores in fiction the lasting impact of this event as well as the likelihood that Katherine Carey was Henry VIII’s child.

‘Nobody brings historical characters to life like Alison Weir’

– Tracy Borman

Tickets: £12 / £10
Box Office: essexbookfestival.org.uk or Mercury Theatre 01206 573948

Event Information

💬 The event will include an audience Q&A session.
📚 Copies of the book will be available to purchase on the day.
🖊️ After the event there will be an opportunity to get the book signed by the author.
🪑 Seats are unallocated.
☕ Refreshments will be available to buy at this event – cash and card payments taken
🚗 Chelmsford Cathedral is a 5 minute walk from the train station and bus station. The Cathedral does not have its own car park but there are a number of public car parks within a short walking distance: https://www.chelmsford.gov.uk/parking-and-travel/car-parks/.
♿ The venue is wheelchair accessible. There are disabled facilities on site.
📸 We will be filming and taking photos at this event.

Alison Weir

Dr Alison Weir is a bestselling historical novelist of Tudor fiction, and the leading female historian in the United Kingdom. She has published more than thirty books, including many leading works of non-fiction, and has sold over three million copies worldwide. Her novels include the Tudor Rose trilogy, which spans three generations of history’s most iconic family – the Tudors, and the highly acclaimed Six Tudor Queens series about the wives of Henry VIII, all of which were Sunday Times bestsellers. Her latest biography is Queens at War, and her latest novel is The Boleyn Secret (May 2026). Alison is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an honorary life patron of Historic Royal Palaces.

For further information visit Alison’s websites at alisonweir.org.uk and alisonweirtours.com.

Find Alison online:

X: @AlisonWeirBooks | FB: Alison Weir

The Boleyn Secret

Boleyn women. Passionate. Legendary. Full of secrets. This is the spellbinding new novel from Sunday Times bestselling novelist Alison Weir.

At twelve years old, Kate Carey attends her aunt, Queen Anne Boleyn, to the scaffold. Horrified by what she witnesses, Kate is convinced that King Henry VIII has sent an innocent woman to a terrible death.

As the Boleyn’s fall from favour, Kate serves her now motherless cousin, the young Lady Elizabeth. Bound by Boleyn blood, the two girls grow as close as sisters, until Kate marries for love – and leaves a jealous Elizabeth behind.

At court, Kate cannot ignore the sly looks thrown her way, nor the whispers behind her back. Only when her mother, Mary, lies dying, does she learn the life-shattering truth that the Boleyn’s have been hiding for years.

It is a secret that will follow Kate throughout her life, as she flees religious persecution with her husband and lives abroad in fear, only returning home when Elizabeth becomes queen. But the bond between the Boleyn cousins will never be the same again…

Order a hardback copy of the book at bookshop.org.

Praise for Alison Weir’s Tudor Fiction

‘History has the best stories and they should all be told like this’
– Conn Iggulden

‘Alison Weir is ahead of the curve – and at the top of her game’
– Sarah Gristwood

‘Alison Weir makes history come alive as no one else’
– Barbara Erskine