Enjoyable, but I almost felt like the historian was hiding things. She would admit primary sources from Marguerite, but then not share them. Sort of , sure she sounds ridiculous in these letters, but trust me, she's not. Still, I know far more about 16th century France than I did before or would ever have thought likely ( )

I picked up this book because I enjoyed Goldstone’s more recent book, Daughters of the Winter Queen. It’s about a historical period and a region I don’t read about often — most of my French history knowledge comes from whatever intersects with English or Scottish history. In this case, Mary, Queen of Scots, is connected to the two queens chronicled here, as is Elizabeth I. I found this much harder to focus on than a book about English or Scottish history, especially keeping track of all the Henris and Louis, but I’m not going to get any better at keeping track of everyone if I don’t keep reading about the period. Goldstone acknowledges the difficulties of keeping track and refers to people by a single name throughout—Marguerite is Margot, and a couple of her siblings, who changed their names from childhood to adulthood, are referred to by their adult names. I found this quite comprehensive and would recommend it, even if my tired brain took a while to get through it. ( )

And speaking of toxic families (elsewhere), you don't much more toxic than the French monarchy in the mid 16-17th century. Holy crow, what an astonishing and horrifying piece of work they were. This is the story of Queen Margot and her mum. Her mum was a PROBLEM. So were her brothers. La Reign on the other hand, displayed an astonishing ability to survive and eventually (veeeeery eventually) thrive. This biography is quite candidly pro Margot and anti-Catherine, but there is also a significant amount of time exploring what made Catherine what she was, and that is also interesting. It bogged down a bit in the middle, but on the whole another enjoyable history from Nancy Goldstone, whose footnotes occasionally make me snort with laughter. ( )

Actual Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Review: So this did end up getting 3.5 of 5 stars from me (in one of my Goodreads updates, I mentioned how it was starting to feel like a 3.5 of 5 stars read). I did enjoy reading this book and learning about these two powerful women, but, while reading, I felt like Goldstone was singularly focus in on their tumultuous relationship. The Rival Queens would have gotten 4-5 stars if this didn’t bother me as much. As I mentioned, I did enjoy reading this. ( )

I quite enjoyed this.
This is light in tone, extremely engaging and fairly humorous.
Since I know a bit about Catherine de Medici I'm aware that all of the info isn't entirely accepted history but the author is also open when this is case in some areas.
I would label this s fairly thorough biography of Queen Margaret with a focus on the relationship with her mother.
The author clearly sides with Margaret and I think she somewhat presents Catherine inherently worst light and Margaret in her most idealized.
None the less this was fun, fun, fun.
Also the details on the other players at court are helpful.
I do wish the author had focused a bit more on Navarre and Henry IV of France's parents.
I understand that this period is complex, complicated and intense.
Frankly the Spanish Monarchy needed to be fleshed out a bit as well.
These kingdoms heavily are intertwined and its hard to understand just how ruinous this period was for France without taking into account it's general behavior prior to the death of Henry II, Catherine's husband and Margaret's father.
Also there was a weird reference to someone looking like a 'negress' a term I'm not aware of being in familiar use at this time period. In the 1500's 'Black' and 'white' people didn't really exist.
That's the first enslaved people's of the Jamestown in 1619 are listed as 'Angolans' and not 'Black', 'negro' or otherwise.
So I'm unsure of what term was translated from french, I presume, to lead the author to define it that way. ( )