You don't come across a lot of sympathetic portraits of Catherine de Medici. She's generally thought of as one of the great villainess of history. Blamed for the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, Catherine also is remembered for her fondness for poisons and as a dabbler in sorcery.

As a woman of the 16th century, Catherine was the pawn of men and politics. Like all women of the time, she was bound by God, duty, the law and her father to be used in whatever way circumstance warranted. As the wife of a king and the mother of three others, Catherine enjoyed power and privilege. As an outsider in the French court, she was humiliated by her husband and his mistress and lived in an age of treachery and political intrigue where assignation was a very real threat.

Kalogridis presents a Catherine, or Caterina, who loves her husband and children and is determined to protect her family and her sons' birthrights no matter the consequences. To Catherine, the end always justifies the means. To the casual reader, the events of history seem to be well-researched. Still, I was bored by the narrative, at times. The story didn't draw me in. I much preferred the more melodramatic potboilers that Jean Plaidy wrote about Catherine decades ago which I remember as being a lot more lively.