This well-produced monograph is a model of its kind. Thorough research in an impressively wide range of archives and libraries is applied to address significant questions through a clear and controlled argument, which is in turn well contextualised amidst the latest work in its field. Documents are read closely and terminology chosen with care. Katherine Willoughby's emergence and action as an evangelical patroness are shown to be ‘a complex development shaped by myriad kinship and patronage relationships’ (p. 6). Her faith is set in the context of the rich but traditional piety of her parents' household and the evangelical circles of Henry viii's court. Her activity at court and in Lincolnshire as a patroness of preachers and theologians, authors and educators, her roles at the centre of a godly household and gentry network and among the Marian exiles, her position at the more Reformed end of the Edwardian and Elizabethan doctrinal spectrum, are all analysed. Her distinctively female contribution to the Reformation, shaping ideas and practice in dialogue with the clergy, linking with other women across social divides to spread texts and support prisoners, is characterised. In all these respects she is compared with other leading figures. One could make minor criticisms. At times evidence may be made to bear more weight than it can stand, at times the argument is insistent to the point of repetition. But this is an accomplished first book, which should inspire similar studies of the role of aristocratic patrons in the English Reformation.