very well written, engaging. believable characters and obviously thoroughly researched. it hints at a sequel, which I would be keen to read. ( )

Ahh, the Borgias are so addictive. Complex, unpredictable characters in an unforgiving and changeable world. ( )

I loved this book! It was fictional-history with a soap-opera twist!

Having been raised a catholic girl, I did know the Borgia name. I did know the medieval church was a well of corruption. Sarah Dunant took it to a whole new level for me. In her epilogue she states "....the Borgias have suffered from an excess of bad press. While their behavior-personal and political-was often brutal and corrupt, they lived in brutal and corrupt times." She states that she drew her story from a host of modern historians, who studied the history with a more discriminating mind-set. If these historians went easy on the Borgias, I cannot imagine what earlier historians had to say!

15th century Italy was like a piece of pie, cut haphazardly into 7 or eight pieces. Each piece ruled separately by ruthless and brutal men. The Papal States were a small portion of Italy. But with Catholicism being supreme the Pope held power like no other ruler. With the death of Pope Innocent VIII in 1492, the throne of the church was up for grabs. Rodrigo Borgia, a Spaniard, had been waiting for just this moment. A Cardinal of the church, a henchman for Innocent, he was in the prime position to take over. The other Cardinals had their doubts. The main problem; he wasn't Italian. With force and bribes Borgia battled his way through the papal tribunal and won the crown of Christ.

Cardinals could not marry. There was nothing stopping them from having a mistress. Thus, Rodrigo Borgia fathered 4 children. At the time of his assent to Pope, all four of these children were at marriageable age. If you consider 12-17 marriageable! Borgia's plan: marry these children off to the most lucrative, powerful families of Italy and Europe and build a kingdom so strong, no one would be able to penetrate it. 3 sons, 1 daughter, these were his steps to wealth and power. It is a fascinating story, filled with wars, sex, family relationships and the church at the center of it all

When I read fictional-history, my phone is always near-by. I love to fact check, then grade the authors on their ability to get it right. Sarah Dunant gets a B from me. There were only a few things I could not verify. Of course she took liberties with conversation and events, but it's "fictional", so that never enters into my thought process.

I highly recommend this book to those of you who love history with a little spice!





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This (perhaps inevitably) felt a lot like the Godfather in period dress. It's a bit more like a TV drama than a sprawling family saga, though - there's a lot of plot events but the focus is firmly on a small set of leading characters, and there is much less of the background detailing. Unfortunately, the handling of the main characters was rather unsatisfying for me. Lucretia is frequently helpless (by the nature of her position), and the author chooses to make Cesare something of an enigma, which means that we get very little of his interior life. Pope Alexander is more compelling, but he springs into the narrative fully formed, and unlike Vito Corleone, we never get much sense of his journey to the point where we meet him, as an entrenched power broker with an established family.

Note that this is only the first book, and it pauses rather than reaching a finale. ( )

I must admit that I don't usually enjoy Sarah Dunant books, having tried all three of her most popular works, including "The Birth of Venus." I always felt as if I couldn't quite connect with the characters, and that there was something off or stilted about the writing style. Dunant is a talented writer, but I just accepted the fact that her books weren't for me, although it did always annoy me that I couldn't quite put my finger on why.
When this one came out, I went against my decision to leave Dunant to other readers, because I am fascinated with the Borgias. And I am so very glad that I did! This book ended up being everything that I could hope for in a novel about the Borgias, or in a historical fiction novel, for that matter.
I'm not quite sure why I always felt so flatly distanced from Dunant's characters in her other books - but in this one, I was unable to put it down, completely immersed in the fascinating, lavishly dark story. The Borgias were such a drama-filled family, there's so much shocking material that it would be difficult to write a book that's not exciting. And yet, I also appreciated the details of the lavish and opulent setting, and the vivid characters themselves. Lucrezia was the character that I found most memorable and realistic, and her cold brother Cesare was chillingly sinister.
Corruption, rivalries, power struggles, dark secrets, passionate affairs, and of course the infamous incest story - it's all here.
With such material, it would be easy for a book to slip into the feeling of... off-putting sensationalism, as I have found in other Borgia HF. I did not get that impression at all in this book. Perhaps Dunant's more reserved, serious writing lends itself well to such a soap opera type story.
Recommended. ( )