I would like to thank netgalley and Little Brown for a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

An intriguing look into the Borja's world.

I really was looking forward to this novel as I have read other books about the Borgias. This was a book that I
struggled with and found it slow and heavy going. I was unable to even get a quarter of the way through it.

I took my time to read this as I wanted to savour every minute of it. Sarah's descriptions and prose are word perfect in places and I could almost feel the sultry Italian summer whilst I was reading. The history of the Borgias has always fascinated me and so this brought them to life. The only issue I think I had was that all I wanted to do was eat Italian food whilst reading (not sardines I might add! - Read it - you'll get it...) so I would like to ask Sarah for a new pair of trousers. Can't wait to devour the next.

Apart from watching the first series of the television show starring Jeremy Irons a few years ago, I have no knowledge of the Borgias. As soon as I saw this book available on Netgalley, my interest was piqued and I wanted to give it a go.

I’m glad I did. The characters were well developed, the plot moved at a steady pace and the writing was enjoyable. All in all, a solid and entertaining read.

The novel starts with Alexander VI being elected as Pope. It is made apparent early on that this is a man who will stop at nothing – bribery and blackmail should be delivered in equal measures by his more than capable sons if that is what it takes. Once he holds the position of power, the game begins. But his children are his pieces and Alexander VI must move them with great deliberation to ensure the strength and power of his family.

Despite being the Pope, Alexander is, I would say, one of the weaker members of his family. Cersare is clever, ambitious, handsome and will stop at nothing. His character was likeable to start with but his ambition took him too far at points in the latter half of the book. I couldn’t empathise with his character in the second half but there is no denying he was not someone to be trifled with.

Juan was annoying and a show-off. But he paid the price for that and there is some sympathy to be had for his character – his father loved him too much to teach him the realities of the world. Jofré is an irritating brat – but I couldn’t strongly dislike him. He, too, was dealt a bad hand and I empathised with him even while finding him a nuisance.

Lucrezia, for me, was the strongest. She has little choice but to obey the men in her life, but at the same time dreams and dares to follow her heart. She will not be meek and obedient if it only leads to unhappiness but knows how to play her father to get what she wants. She also remains likeable the whole way through, which is more than can be said for her brothers.Blood and Beauty 3

The novel is split into sections, which allows great lengths of time to pass without disrupting the flow of narration. Despite knowing little about this time in history, I quickly became immersed in the world and at no point did it feel disjointed.

The tone of the book gets darker as it progresses. The beginning made me laugh out loud several times, the second half not so much. But that worked with the progression of both the plot and the characters; there was more on the line later in the book than the start.

I really enjoyed Dunant’s writing style. She swept me up in this world of infamous characters and made me both laugh and fear for them equally. This was a little different for me, and I loved it!

This is a really evocative book, successfully throwing the reader into the decadent and opulent world of Renaissance Italy during the papacy of Roderigo Borgia. As a period of history, it is fascinatinating and no one can dispute the interest of the Borgia family. What I think is really impressive here, is the manner in which the author keeps the reader detatched from the characters. We are shown the world from a distance that allows us to view all of the machinations objectively without getting too caught up in the emotional consequences. We can see the charismatic pull of Cesare without being directly affected by it, unlike his contemporaries. I look forward to the concluding book.

I have had a few Sarah Dunant books sitting on the shelf for longer than I care to admit and with the start of my Mount TBR Challenge, I decided that this really had to be the year when I finally got to reading them. Generally acknowledged as one of the grand dames of historical fiction, Dunant has taken Renaissance Italy as her focus in recent years and so it is hardly surprising that she decided to take a look at the infamous Borgia family. With the sequel, In The Name of The Family, hitting the shelves this week, I decided to explore Blood and Beauty and see how Dunant's mission went to seek the 'psychological' truth of a group of people best known for greed, corruption and murder. One thing seemed guaranteed - it was not going to be a dull read.

Blood and Beauty begins with the fateful papal conclave which saw Cardinal Rodrigo di Borgia ascend to the Papal throne. While the officials of the church are hardly known for keeping to their vows of celibacy, Cardinal di Borgia became the first Pope to openly acknowledge his illegitimate children. Bribing, charming and manipulating his way to the top, the new Pope Alexander begins the novel very well pleased with his lot - his glee in his success is almost child-like, but always there is the seedy underside. The girl in his bed is young enough to be his granddaughter and she has been shoved there by her family in hope of advancement - her brother wants a cardinal's hat for her trouble. Alexander contemplates Giulia's growing belly with pride, as well as the three sons and 'ripening daughter' he has by his discarded mistress Vannozza - Dunant repeatedly states that he is a besotted father and he never seems designed to be the diabolical figure of legend.

Indeed, despite the rather emotive title, Blood and Beauty feels like an attempt to rehabilitate, particularly for Lucrezia di Borgia whose reputation remains resolutely black even after all of these centuries. Despite the lack of evidence to validate the claim, she is supposed to have committed incest with most of her family, to have lied in court about her virginity, to have had a hollow ring which she used to poison people, particularly her husbands and that she was at least as consummate a political animal as her father and brothers, if not more so. Is it because she was a woman that people were so much more caught by her dastardly deeds? Who knows. Dunant's depiction is far less dramatic, she draws out a Lucrezia who at thirteen is dreaming of courtly love and fairy-tales, but who is little more than a matrimonial pawn on the chess-board set out by her father and eldest brother Cesare. While some might decry this Lucrezia who is written with so little autonomy, but one cannot help but think it rather more realistic.

Lucrezia's brothers - cold-blooded and ambitious Cesare, arrogant and foolhardy Juan and the babyish Jofre - all of them seem destined for trouble. Juan is the hopeless commander but the high opinion of himself, favourite of his father. Poor Jofre is the unfortunate whose wife Sancia will keep on sleeping with his brothers no matter how much he whines. Cesare is the one consigned to the church, much against his wishes - he would be a soldier, he would breed heirs and the only person he seems truly to care about is his sister Lucrezia and even his love for her will not get in the way of what he wants to win. These are the stories which inspired Game of Thrones, with the Borgias the clear antecedents for the Lannisters.

The hectic world of Borgia maneuvering is difficult for a reader to keep track of - actually living in these times must have been a nightmare. One minutes Florence is in favour, then it is Naples, then Naples is back out again and France is the new ally. All of this leads to a great deal of difficulty in finding Lucrezia an appropriate husband, with first one gentleman discarded and then another who becomes politically inconvenient. The young girl who tried so hard to be good, to follow the church and to be obedient - over the course of the novel, that little girl becomes overwhelmed by events which she did not set in motion. There is a tragedy as she cries out that she is like the 'spider of death' who destroys her mate, a poisoned chalice for any man unfortunate enough to wed her and thus fall into her family's path. What if Lucrezia was not the villain, but just as much a victim?

Indeed, while it may be shocking to read of a Pope of the Catholic Church celebrating the marriage of his illegitimate daughter, with his teenage mistress sitting beside him at the table, Dunant keeps Pope Alexander as an affectionate if selfish man. But if Lucrezia and Alexander are seen in a more forgiving light, the same is not true for Dunant's version of Cesare - the first man in history to set down a cardinal's hat, his hands drenched in the blood of innocents, someone with a tendency to murder anyone who his sister cares about. Yet beneath all his silks and jewels, Dunant also paints him as an early victim of the new French disease, the pox. Cesare appears capable of anything, willing to murder in cold blood, ready to rape, to go back on his word, to lie, to cheat, to steal - he is not someone to have as enemy but nor is he a trustworthy ally. In short, he is an extremely compelling villain.

The story of the Borgia family is one of those episodes within history that truly is stranger than fiction. Long before Henry VIII was rewriting the rules to suit his own matrimonial needs, the Borgias were doing all of this and more and with less shame. For a historical novelist, there are rich pickings here, but Dunant is not just any novelist, she is a master of the genre and in Blood and Beauty, she humanises her characters while still displaying them in all their glory. The sheer labour of counting out Lucrezia's dowry - the largest ever in history - is shown, all while Lucrezia tries to maintain a smile and pretend that this bartering is not in any way humiliating. The gossip and the back and forth between the ambassadors, the warring factions in the papal court - it is all utterly fascinating. For someone who loves historical fiction as much as I do and who loathes the froth which dominates so much of the genre, Blood and Beauty was a joy to read. I cannot remember the last time that I read something that depicts so vividly the frightening contrast between the superficial courtly interplay and the political mechanisations going on beneath the surface. Lucrezia can sew and smile and do all the right things, but the wind can change and with it her fate.

It was with delight and relief that I set upon In The Name of the Family - there has been much written concerning the Borgias and five minutes of internet research are enough to indicate that this is not going to end well, but Dunant has a confident hand on the tiller and an obvious passion and enthusiasm for her subject. For my foray into her writing, it has been a resounding success - the five hundred and odd pages went zooming past and these long-dead figures, reduced to ciphers by centuries of rumour-mongering, step forth as fully-rounded characters, none of whom it would be wise to turn one's back upon.

Rome in the late 15th Century and the Pope is dead, through various machinations an upstart Spaniard Roderigo Borgia is elected to the Papal office. Borgia takes the name Alexander but he is the head of a powerful and ambitious family of illegitimate children including his eldest son Cesare and his only daughter Lucrezia. The Borgias are keen to found a dynasty and after the death of second son Juan, Cesare renounces his priesthood to become a feared leader of the papal army. Lucrezia is a pawn in the marriage game but love is snatched from her by her family.

The legends of the Borgia family are legion, their infamy precedes them. However in this book Dunant tries to look beyond the obvious. Her writing is, as ever, lyrical and the plot runs along at a pace - it was ever going to be with this subject matter. I do like the way that Dunant is crystal-clear with events that are historical fact but is more ambiguous with those events that are never proven (who killed Juan Borgia, whether Lucrezia had an illegitimate child). Given the style of writing these ideas coalesce into a whole narrative which is both historically accurate and detailed yet has strong place in the pantheon of challenging historical fiction.

As well as being a bookseller I'm a professional historian; my academic focus? Renaissance history. The Borgias are a fascinating family, and the period this book is set one of the most interesting of all time. How then did Sarah Dunant manage to make what should have been one of the most riveting works of historical fiction so unimaginably dull? I liked the implementation of the omniscient narrator, but it didn't do enough to make the book really grab my attention. It's well researched and accurate but would have been better served as a work of popular history than a work of historical fiction. With so much focus on making sure the characters were true to their historical counterparts, they failed to really come to life. The novel felt somehow impersonal and flat.

4.5 stars.

In 1492 the Spaniard Rodrigo Borgia is elevated to the papacy as Pope Alexander VI. It’s an appointment based less on piety than political shrewdness. Generous to his friends and flexible in his scruples, Alexander may not be the pope that Rome wants, but he is the one that it deserves. After all, Renaissance Rome is a seething, ambitious, dangerous city where life is merely a poor shadow of its ancient vanished grandeur. There are as many courtesans as clerics; anything can be had at the right price; and a man can be made to disappear between dusk of one day and dawn of the next. If the Tiber keeps its secrets, he might never be seen again.

Beyond the city, the other Italian states squabble among themselves, and France and Spain linger on the sidelines, waiting for a chance to strengthen their own hand in the peninsula. And, if the world around him is imperfect, Alexander is no less so, with his beautiful young mistress, Giulia Farnese, and his four beloved children: vain, lecherous Juan; sullen Jofre; beautiful, naive Lucrezia; and self-contained, calculating Cesare, who nurses a warrior’s heart underneath his cardinal’s robes.

With three extremely good books on Renaissance Italy behind her (The Birth of Venus; In the Company of the Courtesan; and Sacred Hearts), Sarah Dunant is predictably in her element here. She knows this period and the political jostling like the back of her hand and it shows. As far as I can tell, everything is historically accurate or founded on a shrewd assessment of what is likely to have happened (trust me: I tried to catch her out several times, but was foiled on every occasion). I actually enjoyed this even more than the earlier three novels, perhaps because it is more purely historical, and done so well. Unlike many novels about the Borgias, there’s no sensationalism, and the story actually flows better without it: because, with history this good, why make it up?

For the full review, please visit the link to my blog given below.
https://theidlewoman.net/2013/10/29/blood-beauty-sarah-dunant/

This is a wonderfully engaging re-telling of the Borgia family story from Roderigo's election as Pope Alexander VI in 1492 to Lucrezia's third marriage into the d'Este family in 1502. Dunant resists just churning out the usual scurrilous stories of incest, poisoning, murder and decadence, and instead offers a more complex tale of complicated politics and characters.

The narrative is marked by a sly wit: `the Pope sits in darkness in his bedchamber. Recently his legs have been causing him trouble. Perhaps he is not used to spending so much time on his knees', and is clear-sighted about the characters: `To be lauded as a hero for a battle that everyone knows you didn't win could be a burden as much as a triumph. Juan, however, manages to remain oblivious'.

At the book's heart is Roderigo (pope, devoted family man, easily moved to tears yet ruthless when necessary) and the wonderfully menacing and yet dangerously charismatic Cesare who steals every scene in which he appears. Dunant manages his portrait sensitively and gives him a psychological acuity frequently missing from the more sensationalist literature: her treatment of the capture of Caterina Sforza, for example, is masterly.

Dunant's previous Renaissance books haven't really worked for me but I loved this. It's one of those rare books that I wanted to read slowly to savour the pleasure of every page - and I can't wait for the second volume in the story.