Blood & Beauty

This novel covers the Borgia family from the election of Rodrigo Borgia as Pope Alexander VI to Lucrezia Borgia's marriage to the son of the Duke of Ferrara (her third marriage). It is mostly focused on the lives of Pope Alexander VI and his children, but occasionally steps back to give a wider view of what was happening in Europe for context. It's written from a third person omniscient perspective, which mostly worked for me. I did not want to be in the heads of any of these characters, and I was interested in the wider European picture. My one difficulty with this book was that the only character who really seemed to come alive was Rodrigo/Alexander, and at times Lucrezia. Everyone else seemed fairly one dimensional.

The author has said that she didn't put anything in the book that contradicted the historical record, so if you like your historical fiction to be plausible and informed by research, this might be the Borgia novel for you. I liked it well enough to put the follow up, In the Name of the Family, on my To Read list.

Critical reviews meant that I came to this book with high expectations. Unfortunately, for me the ‘family melodrama' style the author has chosen did not satisfy. It proved something of a chore to complete.

It was my first and, I suspect, my last Sarah Dunant novel.

It seems more like a history book rather than a novel. Also, I find fiction written in the present tense rather annoying.