jesuisici33's reviews
396 reviews

Although the Showtime version of Lucrezia Borgia is the one I fell in love with, Gortner did a spectacular job. I don't have much historical knowledge besides these two media portrayals, I loved Lucrezia's character growth from adoring her father, Pope Alexander VI, and her brother, Cesare, to seeing the corruption the two have and needing to adapt in order to survive in their world. I especially loved that Gortner refused to portray her as a femme fatal who was a mistress of poisons and instead made her a three dimensional character. Though I'm new to historical fiction, from what I read numerous women in major history has been reduced to less than that instead of the complicated person they were, so The Vatican Princess was a breath of fresh air.