The Second Empress

I just finished reading The Second Empress by Michelle Moran tonight. It just came out this past Tuesday, I was very excited about this book. I have liked all but one of Michelle Moran's books and I was looking forward to this one. It didn't disappoint.

This book takes place after Napoleon has battled his way to Emperor of France and his wife Josephine can not bare him any children to be his heir, so he divorces her and sets off to look for a new bride that can give him the heir he craves and the royal blood he desperately wants.

He chooses for his bride Maria-Lucia, the great niece of Marie Antoinette, from Austria. She is a Hapsburg, from 800 years of royalty. Maria-Lucia agrees to the marriage at the age of 18, not out of love for the emperor, but to save her father's crown and to keep Austria out of war.

The book covers the five years that Maria-Lucia and Napoleon are married. Unlike the other books by Michelle Moran, this book has many different perspectives. It focused between Maria-Lucia, Pauline Bonaparte, and Paul, Paulette's chamberlain. It did seem though that there was more from Pauline and Paul then Maria-Lucia. It gave the story a little more in depth look into the Bonaparte life and the creepy relationship that was suspected between Napoleon and Pauline, but it would have been nice to see more from the actual empress.

All and all, it was a good read, a lot of history in the story. It was interesting to read about the time after Marie Antoinette and the bloody revolution, only to go back under an even more ostentatious ruler. To read!