Review: Renaissance Rivals by Karen Essex

Renaissance Rivals

Sequel to Leonardo's Swans

by Karen Essex

Review:

Oh, I love the Renaissance! An era full of intrigues, secrets, shifting loyalties, powerful upstarts, ruthless ambition, and murder.

 

The politics of the time provide the perfect backdrop for a novel about two remarkable ladies of the era: Isabella d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia.

 

I've been familiar with Lucrezia Borgia and her unhealthily ambitious family. Her father, Pope Alexander VI, pulled all the strings, and she obeyed, entering marriage after marriage at his bidding. It was a daughter's fate. I knew less about Isabella d'Este, though I'd heard of her family, so I was curious to discover the woman behind the somewhat fearsome reputation.

 

The senior of the two by a few years, Isabella is portrayed as a woman of the world. She is highly intelligent, well-educated, cleverly manipulative, and she knows her worth. Content in her arranged marriage to Francesco Gonzaga, she enjoys wielding power at their home in Mantua during her husband's many absences. And fortunately for her, she's not adverse to her husband's attention in the bedroom – always a handy way to soothe any irritation he may feel.

 

Until young Lucrezia Borgia arrives to marry Isabella's brother, Alfonso. And to start a long-lasting affair with Francesco...

Isabella is a woman who enjoys exerting influence and patronage, whilst Lucrezia is the dutiful daughter of the Pope – illegitimate but acknowledged.

 

Twice married already, Lucrezia is like a breath of fresh air: daring, confident, and with a often cleverly hidden rebellious streak. She'd learned from the masters – her father, Alexander VI and her scheming brother, Cesare – as to how to conceal her true emotions, whilst looking for her own advantage. She obeys her father meekly, realising that she cannot determine her own fate as much as she'd like to. So she makes the best of her third marriage – by starting an affair with her brother-in-law. But Francesco's dissolute lifestyle has other effects – which both women soon learn of.

 

Isabella, meanwhile, is trying to maintain her decorum in light of being so blatantly cheated on. She still has the support of her husband, who would not cast her aside for another. Francesco is excited about the birth of their daughters, something Isabella finds baffling. Her big regret for years is for not bearing a male heir. This makes her seem cold, aloof but with women conditioned to birthing male heirs, it shouldn't be surprising.

 

Renaissance Rivals pits two remarkable women of the era against each other. Both are fully aware of their influence, subtle but assertive, in an era of warfare, political intrigues, and assassinations. The connection to Machiavelli is an added treat that deepens the intrigue.

 

 Both women are also victims of the patriarchy – the means for their fathers to form and discard (!) alliances, as they see fit. Dutiful, well-educated daughters; scheming wives; political intrigants; in short, two young women who have learned ways to wield power.

 

The historical background is very well-researched. Ms Essex has created a sumptuous world of luxury and power, with strong, dangerous undercurrents to keep us readers on our toes.

 

Were Isabella and Lucrezia really such rivals, or is their reputation as we assume it misleading? Well, you should read the novel to find out more!

 

Highly recommended for readers of personal intrigues and ambition, in a colourful setting of secret plots, scientific and artistic discovery, and endless wars across Europe!

Blurb:

Renaissance Rivals, the long-awaited sequel to the global bestseller Leonardo’s Swans, brings to life the brutal rivalry between two of history’s most fascinating women: Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, celebrated in her own lifetime as “The First Lady of the World,” and Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara, daughter of the infamous Pope Alexander VI and one of the most maligned women in history.

Before the doomed duchess of Maggie O'Farrel's The Marriage Portrait, there were women who built the courts, forged the alliances, and turned power into art. Renaissance Rivals invites readers to step back one generation into the glittering, dangerous world that shaped the Italy of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Niccolò Machiavelli.

Pitted against each other by the ruthless political landscape and by the men they loved, Isabella and Lucrezia must learn how to survive in a world where women are treated as prizes, pawns, and weapons. Their battle is intimate, brilliant, and borders on the fatal, a war fought with jewels, letters, seduction, betrayal, and the strategic intelligence of women who refuse to disappear.

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Karen Essex

Karen Essex is the national and international bestselling author of Run, Darling, Kleopatra, Pharaoh, Leonardo's Swans, Stealing Athena, Dracula in Love, and Bettie Page: Life of a PinUp Legend.

All feature iconic women—powerful women that seduced the world and ruled it. Essex is also an active screenwriter and speaker, and an award-winning journalist.

She divides her time between Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Europe. Her novels are published in twenty-nine languages.

Leonardo’s Swans, the prequel to Renaissance Rivals, was a runaway bestseller in Italy and won the prestigious Premio Roma for Foreign Fiction.

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