The Confessions of Catherine de Medici by C. W. Gortner
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publish Date: May 24, 2011
Paperback, 432 pages
Fiction, Historical
ISBN: 978-0345501875
***My Book Review will follow later today***
About C. W. Gortner
C.W. Gortner is the author of the acclaimed historical novels T
he Last Queen, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici, and
The Tudor Secret.
He holds an MFA in Writing with an emphasis on Renaissance Studies from
the New College of California. In his extensive travels to research his
books, he has danced a galliard in a Tudor great hall and experienced
life in a Spanish castle. He is also a dedicated advocate for animal
rights and environmental issues. Half-Spanish by birth, he divides his
time between Northern California and Antigua, Guatemala.
About The Confessions of Catherine de Medici
Catherine de Medici was one of history’s most powerful women. She has
been called brilliant and bold, but was also known as a vengeful
Italian Jezebel who resorted to murder to protect her family’s throne.
Was she the ruthless queen who led France into an era of savage
violence? Or was she the passionate savior of the French monarchy?
Originally published in hardcover in 2010, C.W. Gortner’s novel
THE CONFESSIONS OF CATHERINE DE MEDICI
(Ballantine Trade Paperback; On Sale: May 24, 2011) challenges the dark
legend surrounding Catherine de Medici, revealing her tumultuous youth
as a papal pawn; her gift of second sight; her courageous fight to save
France; and her secret passion for a man she is fated to destroy.
The last legitimate descendant of the illustrious Medici line,
Catherine suffers the expulsion of her family from her native Florence
and narrowly escapes death at the hands of an enraged mob. Married to a
French prince, eventually a queen in name if not in her husband’s heart,
she strives to create a role for herself, aided by her patronage of the
famous clairvoyant Nostradamus and her own innate gift as a seer. But
in her 40th year, Catherine is widowed, left alone with six young
children as regent of a kingdom torn apart by religious discord and the
ambitions of a treacherous nobility.
Relying on her tenacity, wit, and uncanny gift for compromise,
Catherine seizes power, intent on securing the throne for her sons. She
allies herself with the enigmatic Protestant leader Coligny, with whom
she shares an intimate secret, and implacably carves a path toward
peace, unaware that her own dark fate looms before her—a fate that, if
she is to save France, will demand the sacrifice of her ideals, her
reputation, and the passion of her embattled heart.
From the fairy-tale châteaux of the Loire Valley to the battlefields
of the wars of religion to the mob-filled streets of Paris,
THE CONFESSIONS OF CATHERINE DE MEDICI is the extraordinary untold journey of one of the most maligned and misunderstood women ever to be queen.
Read an Excerpt!
Chapter One
I was ten years old when i discovered i might be a witch. I sat sewing with my aunt Clarice, as sunlight spread across the
gallery floor. Outside the window I could hear the splashing of the
courtyard fountain, the cries of the vendors in the Via Larga and
staccato of horse hooves on the cobblestone streets, and I thought for
the hundredth time that I couldn’t stay inside another minute.
“Caterina Romelo de’ Medici, can it be you’ve finished already?”
I looked up. My late father’s sister Clarice de’ Medici y Strozzi
regarded me from her chair. I wiped my brow with my sleeve. “It’s so hot
in here,” I said. “Can’t I go outside?”
She arched her eyebrow. Even before she said anything, I could have
recited her words, so often had she drummed them into my head: “You are
the Duchess of Urbino, daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici and his wife,
Madeleine de la Tour, who was of noble French blood. How many times must
I tell you, you must restrain your impulses in order to prepare for
your future?”
I didn’t care about the future. I cared that it was summer and here I
was cooped up in the family palazzo forced to study and sew all day, as
if I might melt in the sun.
I clapped my embroidery hoop aside. “I’m bored. I want to go home.”
“Florence is your home; it is your birth city,” she replied. “I took
you from Rome because you were sick with fever. You’re fortunate you can
sit here and argue with me at all.”
“I’m not sick anymore,” I retorted. I hated it when she used my poor
health as an excuse. “At least in Rome, Papa Clement let me have my own
servants and a pony to ride.”
She regarded me without a hint of the ire that the mention of my
papal uncle always roused in her. “That may be but you are here now, in
my care, and you will abide by my rules. It’s midafternoon. I’ll not
hear of you going outside in this heat.”
“I’ll wear a cap and stay in the shade. Please, Zia Clarice. You can come with me.”
I saw her trying to repress her unwilling smile as she stood. “If
your work is satisfactory, we can take a stroll on the loggia before
supper.” She came to me, a thin woman in a simple gray gown, her oval
face distinguished by her large liquid-black eyes—the Medici eyes, which
I had inherited, along with our family’s curly auburn hair and
long-fingered hands.
She swiped up my embroidery. Her lips pursed when she heard me
giggle. “I suppose you think it’s funny to make the Holy Mother’s face
green? Honestly, Caterina; such sacrilege.” She thrust the hoop at me.
“Fix it at once. Embroidery is an art, one you must master as well as
your other studies. I’ll not have it said that Caterina de’ Medici sews
like a peasant.”
I thought it best not to laugh and began picking out the offensive
color, while my aunt returned to her seat. She stared off into the
distance. I wondered what new trials she planned for me. I did love her
but she was forever dwelling on how our family prestige had fallen since
the death of my great-grandfather, Lorenzo Il Magnifico; of how
Florence had been a center of learning renowned for our Medici
patronage, and now we were but illustrious guests in the city we had
helped build. It was my responsibility, she said, to restore our
family’s glory, as I was the last legitimate descendant of Il
Magnifico’s bloodline.
I wondered how she expected me to accomplish such an important task.
I’d been orphaned shortly after my birth; I had no sisters or brothers
and depended on my papal uncle’s goodwill. When I once mentioned this,
my aunt snapped: “Clement VII was born a bastard. He bribed his way to
the Holy See, to our great shame. He’s not a true Medici. He has no
honor.”
Given his prestige, if he couldn’t restore our family name I didn’t
know how she expected me to. Yet she seemed convinced of my destiny, and
every month had me dress in my uncomfortable ducal finery and pose for a
new portrait, which was then copied into miniatures and dispatched to
all the foreign princes who wanted to marry me. I was still too young
for wedlock, but she left me no doubt she’d already selected the
cathedral, the number of ladies who would attend me—
All of a sudden, my stomach clenched. I dropped my hands to my belly,
feeling an unexpected pain. My surroundings distorted, as if the
palazzo had plunged underwater. Nausea turned my mouth sour. I came to
my feet blindly, hearing my chair crash over. A terrifying darkness
overcame me. I felt my mouth open in a soundless scream as the darkness
widened like a vast ink stain, swallowing everything around me. I was no
longer in the gallery arguing with my aunt; instead, I stood in a
desolate place, powerless against a force that seemed to well up from
deep inside me . . .
I stand unseen, alone among strangers. They are weeping. I see tears
slip down their faces, though I can’t hear their laments. Before me is a
curtained bed, draped in black. I know at once something horrible lies
upon it, something I should not see. I try to stay back but my feet move
me toward it with the slow certainty of a nightmare, compelling me to
reach out a spotted, bloated hand I do not recognize as my own, part the
curtains, and reveal
“Dio Mio, no!” My cry wrenched from me. I felt my aunt holding me,
the frantic caress of her hand on my brow. I had a terrible stomachache
and lay sprawled on the floor, my embroidery and tangled yarns strewn
beside me.
“Caterina, my child,” my aunt said. “Please, not the fever again . . .”
As the strange sensation of having left my own body began to fade, I
forced myself to sit up. “I don’t think it’s the fever,” I said. “I saw
something: a man, lying dead on a bed. He was so real, Zia . . . it
scared me.”
She stared at me. Then she whispered, “Una visione,” as if it was
something she’d long feared. She gave me a fragile smile, reaching out
to help me to my feet. “Come, that’s enough for today. Let us go take
that walk, si? Tomorrow we’ll visit the Maestro. He’ll know what to do.”
The Confessions of Catherine de Medici Tour Schedule
Monday, June 13th
Book reviewed and giveaway at
Bookish Delights
Book spotlighted at
Books, Products and More!
Tuesday, June 14th
Book spotlighted at
The Phantom Paragrapher
Book reviewed at
The Bookish Dame
Wednesday, June 15th
Book reviewed at
Mom’s Tree House
Thursday, June 16th
Book reviewed and giveaway at
Curling Up by the Fire
Friday, June 17th
Book reviewed at
Crystal’s Reading Room
Monday, June 20th
Book reviewed at
Always with a Book
Tuesday, June 21st
Book reviewed at
One Book Shy of a Full Shelf
Wednesday, June 22nd
Book reviewed at
One Day at a Time
Thursday, June 23rd
Book reviewed at
Library of Clean Reads
Friday, June 24th
Book spotlighted at
By the Book (review to follow)
FTC Information:
I received this book from the publisher through Pump Up Your Book Promotion for an honest review. I have Amazon
links on my review pages but I do not make any money from
these because of NC laws. I put them solely for people to
check out the books on a retail site.
Legacy by Cayla Kluver
I noticed his eyes. They were blue, sharp and intense. Despite the
youthful glows of his suntanned face, his eyes were cold and unfriendly,
suggesting he had great experience in the world and was now expecting
the worst.
Posts
