Wow. Really, there is nothing more one needs to say. Three letters, one word. As Amazon doesn't accept such short reviews, I shall expand:
First of all, Ms Quinn does an absolutely fantastic job of bringing to life the historical setting. Women unlace their sleeves, use clogs to avoid muddying their shoes, tapers light rooms, quills scrape against paper, velvet rustles and gleams, bells ring out the hours... Not once does ms Quinn set her elegant little toes wrong, thereby immersing me entirely in this vibrant world of the late 15th century, in a Rome dominated by the pope, Rodrigo Borgia, and his somewhat amoral offspring.
Secondly, Ms Quinn gives us people of life and blood: Giulia Farnese is no longer a silly girl, she is an intelligent woman who gives us a delightful, dry and humorous insight into her life. She also has the endearing habit of eating whenever she is in a stressful situation, Carmelina has the urge to cook her way out of life's problems (and boy, does my mouth water), Lionello retreats into self-loathing and cynisism, the pope is a marvel of complexity, alternating between primitive possessiveness and elegant manipulation, and as to Cesare Borgia, well here Ms Quinn presents a man so full of talent he could have laid the world at his feet, had he not been so twisted up inside.
Thirdly, the plot is a complex, sinuous thing that has the reader alternating between gasps and serious nail-chewing. Fear, anguish, joy, hope - emotions lift from the pages to ensnare and bind, making it more or less impossible to put the book down.
Finally, Ms Quinn sure knows how to write.
So yes, all in all, one word suffices. WOW. Major, major WOW
The Lion and the Rose: A Novel of the Borgias
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