Customer Reviews

Notorious Royal Marriages: A Juicy Journey Through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny,and Desire

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Leslie Carroll has followed her bestseller "Royal Scandals" with another delightful page turner of the marital joys and sorrows of famous royal couples throughout history. The book takes us on a journey through marital (and sometimes martial!)land from the ninth century to the marriages of Prince Ranier and Grace Kelly and the doomed marriage of Diana and Charles.
Carroll earned her authorial spurs writing female fiction and her abilities as a storyteller are superb.. The author has done her homework and produced a readable page turner. The book would have been enriched by adding illustrations and pictures of some of the most prominent couples profiled. It is a hefty tome of 500 pages including many quotations and contemporary assessments by observers on the marriages under review. This is not the history you read it school but the incidents related were important to the marriage partners and their nations.
Aong the many royal marriages these couples stood out:
Henry VIII and his six wives get the most chapters. Catherine of Aragon from Spain who was abandoned for Anne Boleyn (who Henry beheaded); Jane Seymour who gave the lusty and cruel monarch his only son Edward VI. (she died as a result of childbirth); Anne of Cleves whom Henry cast aside; Katharine Howard executed for adultery and treason and the kind and reformed minded Katherine Parr who nursed Henry in his years of declining health.
Tragic stories abound in this book. Nicholas and Alexandra whose love was strong but who were executed by the Communists in 1918 along with their family; Queen Victoria and her beloved Albert who had nine children and remained faithful unto death and Franz Jospeh and Susi his anorexic wife. Mary Queen of Scots died on the block and had three marriages while Catherine the Great had countless lovers and may have poisoned her idiotic tsar husband. Eleanor of Aquitane was imprisoned by her husband Henry II and was a tough medieval cookie who knew the ways of diplomacy, war and the bedchamber. Napoleon was a cad to Josephine who, nevertheless, loved him.
Anyone expecting this book to read like a Harlequin Romance is condemned to disappointment. It is a well written history of the marriages that mattered among the elite of various European nations. Carroll has done a good job!

I cannot stop reading and re-reading this book! Well written, well researched, and one of the greatest books I have read in quite some time. One of my favorite features about this is that although it is organized chronologically, you can still read this book in sections and skip around to your favorite stories. The author presents her opinions in an appropriate manner, which I believe causes the reader to engage further with the text. You will not be able to put this book down. I especially appreciated the juicy bits on Grace Kelly and Wallace Simpson.

Notorious Royal Marriage by Leslie Carroll is a delightful romp through European history by way of examining several of the most infamous couples of all time. Eleanor of Aquitaine and her consecutive kings, Isabella and Ferdinand, Juana and Philip, Henry VIII and all six Queens, Mary Stuart and Henry Lord Darnley, Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI, Alexandra and her Nicholas and many more. It is a book which I found not only highly entertaining but in each chapter, even those about royals whom I have studied, I always learned things I had never known before. In most instances, when addressing certain controversies, Leslie carefully presents the evidence, gives her opinion, but lets the reader draw their own conclusions. I have to say that I am impressed with the vast amount of information that was compiled for each royal marriage, yet summarized into compact narratives.

Royal Marriages has a distinct common touch that makes it an easy read but contains enough dates and details for any lover of history. While the chapter on Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette had a few items that Leslie and I could probably sit and debate about over cocktails, I was moved by the chapters on Franz Josef and Sissi, who suffered everything throughout their long and rocky marriage, as well as by the retelling of the saga of George IV and Mrs. Fitzherbert. I was very glad that Leslie pointed out the Nazi connection in recounting the bizarre relationship of Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII. Most of all, I loved the chapters on Mary Queen of Scots.

I had trouble putting this book down and must have been an incredible bore to my family over the holidays as I kept slipping away to read it. It was intriguing to see how even the best of marriages had ups and downs, with the complications of royalty adding to the challenges of compatibility.

After reading and loving Leslie Carroll's Royal Affairs, I just HAD to get my hands on her follow up non-fiction book, Notorious Royal Marriages: A Juicy Journey Through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny, and Desire! And, it did not disappoint! You see, Leslie has this great sense of humor that resonates throughout the book, making you laugh out loud and wishing high school history was taught this way! I, for one, would've stayed awake for sure!

In Notorious Royal Marriages, Miss Carroll covers infamous Royal couples throughout history; from the tempestuous Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine to the 21st century love triangle between Princess Diana, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles. What's really great about NRM, is that the chapters are nice and condensed, making it easy to pick up when you've only got a few moments and also, it is easy to jump around to certain chapters depending on what piques your interest. And even though some of the couples are well known, Leslie adds the most interesting tid-bits. For example, Mary Tudor (Henry VIII's youngest sister) had a wardrobe worth $30 million dollars in today's money when she was sent to marry King Louis XII. Yowza!! Can we say DIVA? She puts Paris Hilton to shame!

The only thing that I think would bring a lot to the book is pictures. Not only because I am aesthetically stimulated, but also because I think it would be nice to have a visual reference when reading about a particular couple.

Yours truly highly recommends Notorious Royal Marriages to all!

FTC: my copy of Notorious Royal Marriages was provided by NAL Publishing for review.

As stated by other reviewers, this book falls somewhere in between a solid history tome and a harlequin romance. Carroll has provided a good overview of each profiled couple - for the history buff, a wonderful jumping off point for further study, but probably just as much as the casual reader will want to know. The tales are easily read and are engaging, but a star does get bumped off for the frequent interjection of the author's personal opinion of the historical figures, disrupting the flow of each couple's story.

Ms. Carroll provides us with a very good overview to world events and it was diverting at the same time.

This book goes into some of the more interesting royal marriages of the last 1000 or so years.

There are many, many marriages that are discussed. While not all the information is exactly new to people interested in royalty or history it is chock full of very interesting storys of royal marriages.

The book starts with the marriage(s) of Eleanore of Aquitaine and ends with the marriages of Prince Charles of Wales.

During the intervening years she details the notable marriages of people such as
1. Isabelle of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon
2. Juana la loca and Phillip the hansome
3. Catherine of Aragon and her marriages to Arthur and Henry
4. Mary Tudor (the sister of Henry VIII) and her marriages to the King of France and Duke Charles Brandon
5. Henry II of France and Catherine de Midici
6. Henry VIII's marriages to Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, and Catherine Howard
7. Mary, Queen of Scotts and her three marriages
8. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert
9. Franz Joseph of Austria and his cousin Elisabeth
10. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Tsarina Alexandra

and many more that will keep you entertained for hours.

I have to say I enjoyed this book. First, what I liked about it. It is well researched, entertaining and fun to read. It profiles royal marriages throughout history, and I was very glad to see Ms. Carroll included non-British marriages, particularly the tragic story of Sophia Dorothea and Grace and Rainier of Monaco. It brings you right up to present-day Britain, where one reads the rather sad current state of affairs (forgive the pun) between Charles and Camilla. I particularly liked the chapters on the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Franz Joseph and Elisabeth.

That said, now for the negatives. Being a royalphile myself, the Charles and Camilla chapter contains sloppy editing that made me cringe. Ms. Carroll referred to Camilla's first husband as Tom in a couple of places (his name is Andrew, Tom is her son) which was distracting. I wasn't always happy with the hip expressions Ms. Carroll used in her writing, which seemed out of place at times. I guess my last criticism is the marriages she left out. Granted, she couldn't include them all, but she could have omitted some of Henry VIII's wives (which have been covered ad nauseum by other books), and she probably could have incorporated the chapters of Napoleon and George IV and their wives. I would have liked to read about Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, or French kings like Louis XIV or XV, and especially Russian Grand Dukes and Duchesses. Maybe Ms. Carroll can do another book?

But ok, a lot of these quibbles can be forgiven. If you love reading about royalty as I do, I recommend buying this book.

Its certainly a fun read, but it is wildly innacurate in many places. I have read hundreds of books on the Tudors, and some of the stuff in here was news to me, and not in a good way. In an effort to make this a good read the writer added many untrue things and definetly slanted the information to suit her own opinions and biases.

Overall, I enjoyed this book tremendously, it covered several centuries of royal marriages in various countries of Europe. Its series of accounts of royal marriages began with Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine through Prince Charles' and his first and second wives, Lady Diana Spencer and Camilla Parker Bowles. All six marriages of Henry VIII are chronicled plus include chapters on legendary matches of Victoria and Albert; Ferdinand and Isabella; Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI; the Duke and Duchess of Windsor; and Napoleon and Josephine. Readers should also appreciate the chapters on the stormy marriages of George I and Sophia Dorothea of Celle; Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley; George IV and Caroline of Brunswick as well as the true love matches of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville; Nicholas and Alexandra; and the love gone sour marriage of Franz Joseph and Empress Elizabeth. The author's writing makes this book absorbing and a must for historians and royal watchers. Carroll includes a bibliography for further reading.

I hope that future books about other royal marriages will be written by this author--there are many others that would be worthy subjects: for example Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh; George V and Queen Mary; Edward VII and Queen Alexandra; Charles I and Henrietta Marie; and Louis Napoleon and Empress Eugenie.

One quibble is the fact checking/editing. For instance: Andrew Parker Bowles is called Tom Parker Bowles at times; Guilford Dudley was not Edward Seymour's son; Princess Diana married at age 20 not age 19; and Prince Charles said "whatever in love means" not "whatever love means."

An excellent book for those already familiar with the royals and to those who are just starting their research on royal couples throughout history.