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Sins of the House of Borgia

af Sarah Bower

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22511118,865 (3.06)3
Fiction. Literature. Thriller. Historical Fiction. HTML:

In the vein of Sarah Dunant's New York Times bestseller, Blood and Beauty, Sarah Bower reveals the burning heart of the Borgia family.

A Notorious Duke
An Infamous Duchess
An Innocent Girl

Violante isn't supposed to be here, in one of the grandest courts of Renaissance Italy. She isn't supposed to be a lady-in-waiting to the beautiful Lucrezia Borgia. But the same secretive politics that pushed Lucrezia's father to the Vatican have landed Violante deep in a lavish landscape of passion and ambition.

Violante discovers a Lucrezia unknown to those who see only a scheming harlot, and all the whispers about her brother, Cesare Borgia, never revealed the soul of the man who dances close with Violante.

But those who enter the House of Borgia are never quite the same when they leave-if they leave at all. Violante's place in history will test her heart and leave her the guardian of dangerous secrets she must carry to the grave.

What Readers Are Saying
"Glittering, gorgeous, compelling, and stunning."
"A richly satisfying historical novel. It deserves prizes."

.
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» Se også 3 omtaler

Viser 1-5 af 11 (næste | vis alle)
This story follows a young Jewish conversa who becomes a trusted handmaiden of Lucrezia Borgia. There's a lot of fun stuff here, though it's not quite as trashy as the cover might seem to indicate.
However, although it's an enjoyable read, I also found it a frustrating one at times. We're talking about a time period and cast of characters dominated by political intrigue, and the POV character is not a main player in any of that. On the contrary, she's a naive young woman who spends the majority of the book blindly and stupidly in love with Cesare Borgia, and there're no spoilers involved in saying it is obvious all along that he does not love her in return. The whole affair is really fairly horrible - which is not to say it's unbelievable; sadly, it really is - but it can be frustrating, as I said, to follow the travails of a dumbass for nearly 600 pages.
It also creates an awkward situation for the author, because one gets to the end of the story and since the POV character was an ignoramus, you don't know What Was Really Going On All That Time. So the author ties things up with an extended narrative confessional by Lucrezia, which stretched my suspension of disbelief.

I do think the fact that I'm currently following the TV show The Borgias enhanced my enjoyment of the story; although it does give away some historical spoilers! I'm all into the time period right now; so I'm also planning on re-reading the truly excellent "Duchess of Milan" and I've ordered Puzo's "The Family" on an internet recommendation. ( )
  AltheaAnn | Feb 9, 2016 |
I am a serious lover of historical fiction & setting them in Ferrara is usually a bonus & increases the odds I'll love a book. Not here. It's well written & has a lot of detail but it has one glaring problem that cannot be overlooked or discounted. The narrator. First, she has three names going over the course of this story. We meet her as Esther, she converts to Catholicism & is then Donata, she then is nicknamed Violante by Cesare & so we go with that as well.

Now possibly this wouldn't bother me so much but sadly, this is about the most interesting thing about her. You'd think that for all this reinvention she'd be riveting but she isn't. And that takes a lot of the enjoyment out of the story because we rely on her to give color & patina to everything. Often times I was annoyed because it was clear that I had figured out what Esther/Donata/Violante had not (the big reveal at the end didn't astonish me). Not only was she not very self-aware, she had no clue what was going on around her. Even granting that the main character is young, over the course of 500 pages, one does expect to see some character growth. I gave up on her around 75% in and just remained to find our how it all ended. I wouldn't have believed it possible, but she made the Borgias tedious.

And the "relationship" between Esther/Donata/Violante was a complete waste of time. That's because it wasn't much of a relationship. Cesare displayed no qualities that telegraphed "love" for her so who knows why this was an issue that garnered so much attention in the book (I could have lived with just Cesare & La Fiametta trysting). It was a lot of Esther/Donata/Violante pining & fantasizing, some interaction with Cesare, more pining & fantasizing, sparse hook-up, fantasizing & pining. Wash. Rinse. Repeat... while you strike yourself with your Kindle over & over again. She spent the great majority of the story in make-believe & hoping one day it would all come true. Even sickness & childbirth didn't wake her up. It made her seem a simpering twit & not sympathetic. Honestly, if all that had been left out, it may have been a tighter & better told story.

I will say that in spite of everything I've said, other characters did come across well (Angela, Donna Lucrezia, the brothers of the House of Este & Gideon especially) but it becomes an annoyance as you don't spend nearly enough time with them & of course can't get away from the narrator. In the end, this was just okay and I am left a bit disappointed. I had expected a perceptive & sharp telling by a lady in waiting but apparently Esther/Donata/Violante wasn't that person to begin with. She was as disconnected in court as she was with the family she left behind. I suppose there's something to consistency but I wanted more from her. ( )
  anissaannalise | Jan 1, 2014 |
Well... it wasn't as bad as I expected.

I was fully anticipating a Philippa Gregory wanna-be (and I HATE Philippa Gregory), and it turns out Bower is a better writer than Gregory (not hard), but I couldn't figure out for the life of me what story Bower was telling or why she wanted to tell it.

The plot, such as it is: an impossibly beautiful blond blue-eyed Spanish Jewess (I just report this stuff, people) is sort of sold by her father to be a lady-in-waiting to Lucrezia Borgia (no, I didn't understand the transaction aspect of it at all, or what her father got out of it), and must convert to Christianity. She does, because she doesn't really care about being Jewish, and there are later clumsy attempts to make her care, but she just comes off as not thinking seriously about religion at all, which is fairly anachronistic.

Our heroine, who we are repeatedly told is brilliant and irresistible (told, not shown), falls in love with Cesare Borgia, Lucrezia's brother, and bears him a child. Most of the book is her mooning after him while other characters tell her to grow up.

The "holy cow, incest!" revelation about Lucrezia and Cesare is not a revelation to anyone who knows anything about the Borgias, so when it's finally trotted out on page 512, I was not impressed. It only drove home the fact that our heroine is not very bright, given that she's failed to figure this out earlier.

None of the characters are more than two-dimensional, and I had a very hard time telling the minor characters apart. Bower's one stroke of originality is that Cesare infects our heroine with syphilis and she dies from it, instead of marrying the ugly-but-sweet man who is willing to take her, illegitimate child and heart given to another man and all. Seriously, has there ever been someone in real life who would say, "I don't care that you're in love with someone else; I am happy just to be close to you and have sex with you knowing you're thinking about him and hold you when you cry for him..." Seriously? And would that actually be appealing? Lord, no. So why does that character show up ALL THE TIME in these sorts of books? Oh, right, to prove how gloriously irresistible our heroine is. Gag.
  atheist_goat | Dec 19, 2011 |
I enjoyed every bit of this book. I was not familiar with this part of history and the family of the Borgias. It was fascinating to read about the lives of the powerful families of the Italian Renaissance.
This book is told from the point of view of Ester, a lady in waiting to Lucrezia Borgia. She grew up Jewish, but converts to the Catholic faith and is renamed Donata. She falls in love with Cesaer Borgia and what follows is the story of the rise and fall of the Borgia clan. But mostly it is about Ester, eventually nicknamed Violante. She tragically falls in love with Cesaer who is unable to love her in return.
I was a bit confused in the beginning of the story because of all the different names of the characters. Occasionally, some of the same characters are referred to by more than one name. So that took some getting used to.
If you enjoy historical fiction, then this would be a book to add to your to read list. It can meander a bit, but I enjoyed the writing and the plot throughout! ( )
  melaniehope | Oct 25, 2011 |
I was a little disappointed in this novel about the infamous Borgia family. Based on loose historical facts, Sarah Bower builds her story around a converted Jewish woman, La Violante, who serves the daughter of Pope Alexander VII, Lucrezia Borgia. Violante, who narrates the tale, seems both aware and yet sometimes oblivious to the political currents surrounding her. I found Violante to be a frustrating character, difficult to like or relate to, and yet somehow more likable that the rest of the characters. I would suggest this book to those interested in the Borgia family, but not to those unfamiliar with the history. ( )
  wagner.sarah35 | Jun 22, 2011 |
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Fiction. Literature. Thriller. Historical Fiction. HTML:

In the vein of Sarah Dunant's New York Times bestseller, Blood and Beauty, Sarah Bower reveals the burning heart of the Borgia family.

A Notorious Duke
An Infamous Duchess
An Innocent Girl

Violante isn't supposed to be here, in one of the grandest courts of Renaissance Italy. She isn't supposed to be a lady-in-waiting to the beautiful Lucrezia Borgia. But the same secretive politics that pushed Lucrezia's father to the Vatican have landed Violante deep in a lavish landscape of passion and ambition.

Violante discovers a Lucrezia unknown to those who see only a scheming harlot, and all the whispers about her brother, Cesare Borgia, never revealed the soul of the man who dances close with Violante.

But those who enter the House of Borgia are never quite the same when they leave-if they leave at all. Violante's place in history will test her heart and leave her the guardian of dangerous secrets she must carry to the grave.

What Readers Are Saying
"Glittering, gorgeous, compelling, and stunning."
"A richly satisfying historical novel. It deserves prizes."

.

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