Today I am hosting Karen Essex and her latest release, Renaissance Rivals as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club blog tour. Ms Essex has written an interesting story, featuring not only the rivals themselves, but also – however indirectly – the great masters of the period she is writing about: Leonardo da Vinci (who, I think, never delivered the portrait he’d promised one of the protagonists), Michelangelo, a young Rafael – the list is long. Renaissance Rivals also had me googling syphilis – repeatedly. This horrible disease sort of burst upon the European world in the late 15th century, and while the study of medieval skeletons indicate some sort of treponemal disease was around before that, to this day there is no consensus as to when and where syphilis emerged. Initially, people did not understand how it spread (although they caught on quickly), when they were infectious, and that an infected mother would likely pass it to their unborn babies. All this as an aside because I would really, really like to know if Ms Essex knows if her protagonists, Isabella d’Este and Lucrezia Borgia, were aware of the fact that they likely also had syphilis. If they did, how they must have cursed their husbands!
Right, onwards and upwards – let us concentrate on today’s guest of honour, Renaissance Rivals
Renaissance Rivals, the long-awaited sequel to the global bestseller Leonardo’s Swans, tells the story of the brutal rivalry between two of history’s most fascinating power 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 Maggie O’Farrell’s doomed duchess in The Marriage Portrait, there were the women who built the courts, forged alliances, and commanded works of artistic genius. In both Renaissance Rivals and Leonardo’s Swans, Essex invites readers to step back one generation into the glittering courts of Renaissance Italy, where beauty, intellect, marriage, and ambition could determine the fate of nations.
Buy Links:
Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/mdpO2E
For paperback orders: https://shop.karenessex.com
This book is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.
My review
Set in the tumultuous years featuring Cesare Borgia, his father Pope Alexander VI, and his beautiful sister, Lucrezia, Renaissance Rivals is primarily about Isabella d’Este and her complicated relationship with said Lucrezia. It’s not every day a highborn lady has to reconcile herself to the fact that her sister-in-law is none other than the daughter of a pope everyone despises—and fears—and the sister of a man whose prowess on the battlefield has the established Italian families shivering with fear. Besides, Lucrezia comes with her own baggage of rumours: has she slept with her brother? Her father? What exactly happened with her first husband, and let’s not forget hubby number two was murdered under their roof—Isabella has every reason to detest the notion of her favourite brother tying the knot with this seductive serpent. But unless the Este family is to risk having their lands invaded by Cesare Borgia, there is nothing to do but acquiesce.
Lucrezia, meanwhile, is fully aware of how disliked she is. The future duke of Ferrara would never have agreed to marry her had not her father and brother been twisting his arm—just as they have twisted hers to agree to wed as they order. Again. She is under no illusion: she is a family asset to be utilised as her father and brother decide is best.
Let’s just say Isabella and Lucrezia do not hit it off. Isabella does not hesitate to disclose a passionate affair between Lucrezia and a young poet who is hastily banished. To get her own back, Lucrezia seduced Isabella’s husband, Francesco Gonzaga, and seems to genuinely fall in love with him. The war, one could say, is on.
Ms Essex delivers a well-researched and engaging narrative, transporting the reader back to the very complicated politics of Italy during the first decade or so of the 16th century. The papacy is facing off against France, the various city-states don’t quite know what foot to stand on, and the condottieri—the mercenary captains—stand to make fortunes by selling their sword skills to whoever is willing to pay. Isabella’s husband is one such condottieri. She manages the negotiations, the diplomatic manoeuvrings required, as well as their household. Impressively educated, Isabella excels at navigating the quagmires that surround her—but where before she could ignore her husband’s frequent peccadillos, his affair with her sister-in-law tears her up inside.
Where Isabella is forceful, intelligent and educated, Lucrezia is depicted as sensual, beautiful and inherently lazy. We know she too was a capable administrator, but Ms Essex rarely shows that side of Lucrezia—primarily, I suppose, because it is her sensual side that causes Isabella so much grief. Given Ms Essex’s depictions, this reader finds it very hard to see these two women could find any common ground, not even if they tried.
Things come to a head—I leave it to future readers to discover how for themselves. While somewhat dissatisfied with the ending, I am left with a lot of admiration for both Ms Essex’s erudition and Isabella d’Este as well as an increased understanding for this very complicated period in history. And plus points for having so elegantly woven Niccolo Machiavelli into the narrative!
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.
Author Links:
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Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/44OrSh5
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22528.Karen_Essex
Follow Karen’s Substack newsletter, History. Sex. Power: https://substack.com/@karenessex
Thank you for hosting Karen Essex today, and for your lovely review of her fabulous new novel, Renaissance Rivals. We’re delighted you enjoyed it.
Take care,
Cathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club