From Goodreads: I was ten years old when I discovered I might be a witch... The sixteenth century: the era of queens. Catherine de Medici is an impressionable, mystical girl. She is orphaned and taken hostage by her enemies, and manipulated by her advisors; yet she is to become France's most powerful regent. History will make her name synonymous with evil, but she is all too human. Humiliated at the hands of her husband and his mistress, and haunted by her gift of second sight, she must rise above her troubles and fight to save her dynasty and adopted country from the brutal Wars of Religion... In THE CONFESSIONS OF CATHERINE DE MEDICI, C W Gortner vividly depicts the turbulent life of one of history's most notorious yet misunderstood women.
My Thoughts: I have a soft spot for historical females who have been completely villainized and Catherine de Medici falls into this category perfectly. I have read some biographies of her life and have always felt that history has forced her to take the fall for a lot of things that weren't completely her fault. This book for the most part painted a good picture of Catherine de Medici though towards the end there were some questionable moments. I liked that the story sucked me in and that the author made Catherine into a very sympathetic character. She definitely had a hard life and the story really focused on how she tried to overcome the bad hand she was dealt and how she worked to protect her children and their inheritance. I am now curious about the lives of her children because some of them were portrayed as being pretty awful and I am interested in finding out how true that is. Overall, this was a very good book and I think that any fan of historical fiction would enjoy it. 4 Stars.
I really enjoyed Gortner's The Last Queen, although I haven't read anything else by him, he's definitely an author who I want to keep reading.
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