The Secret Life of Josephine, Carolly Erickson

I really didn't know much about Josephine Bonaparte prior to picking this book up at B&N. I did watch the miniseries when I was a teenager and entertained my best friend by shrieking, "I AM THIS REVOLUTION!" over and over again, bad French accent and all. (OK. It was a really bad accent but she had tears rolling down her face from laughing. Hard. Poor Armande Assante. He meant well.)

Since that's really all I remember, I thought there would be more of a love affair aspect to their story. I was really surprised to learn that there wasn't.

Let me start at the beginning. Rose-Joseph (Josephine) moves from her beloved island of Martinique to Paris to marry her distant cousin. On her wedding day, she discovers that he has another family and is in love with another woman. He only married her to claim his inheritance. Not an auspicious beginning. Josephine has left not only her family but two infatuations. At age 15, you'd expect that.

She gives her husband an heir after he brutalizes her one night. His name is Eugene. She is a vicountess and lives as royalty does, spending money lavishly, thinking only of herself and her little family. She also has several affairs, for this is the French way. Apparently the entire aristocracy was sleeping together. She gets glimpses of Marie Antoinette and much admires her. Josephine tries to emulate her grace and elegance.

After the birth of her son, she heals and consents to sharing her husband's bed again. This time, she presents him with a daughter. But all too soon, the winds of change sweep through Paris and the King & Queen are dethroned and beheaded. There is no more monarchy! All those who claimed titles renounce them in the hopes that they will escape the Red Lady, a.k.a. the Guillotine. Being separated from her husband now, she tries to send her children to safety but he denies her. He is one of the agents of change, you see. For him to send his children out of the country would be disaster. They stay. She stays and ends up in jail along with Alexandre for having a brother-in-law who emigrated. Thankfully, she escaped the Terror although her husband did not.

Widowed, with no money or place to go, she is left to make her way as best she knows how. She invests in property, reads tarot cards for money, and works with a financier to get others to borrow money from him. For this she is paid well.

Always, there are lovers. During one of her newest lover's parties, she meets the man who will attempt to change Europe forever. Napoleon Bonaparte. He has big plans for France. And himself. He will rule and he wants Josephine at his side. As she's alone for the most part, she eventually says yes. Even though she does not love him.

Well, I won't go into a lot of details except to say that it wasn't a happy marriage for anyone. Neither of them respected their vows. What I didn't realize was how cruel he became towards her. Belittling her, flaunting his affairs in front her, attempting to hurt her children emotionally. He married her daughter to his brother in order to have the heir to his title. His brother was eventually going to suffer from syphillis. They call it the English disease. (When you read something set in England from that time, it's called the French disease or the French pox.) Yet he wouldn't relinquish his hold on her yet. He felt that Josephine was his good luck charm. He hadn't lost a battle since he'd been with her and was reluctant to let that go for all that came between them.

Needless to say, it was a very odd relationship. Eventually, they divorced and she worked to bring him defeat. It completely shattered what I thought I knew about them. There was a certain ruthlessness about her that I didn't expect. All in all, a well written book through which I learned something new.

Into the Wilderness - Sara Donati

Elizabeth Middleton is a spinster. She is 29, unmarried, with no prospects or interest in changing her fate in England. She lives with her father's sister and is rather well off. She is also strong minded and rather opinionated. She decides to move to America and live with her father in a little town in upstate NY called Paradise.

It is a move that will change her life.

When she first arrives along with her brother, Julian, she is surprised by the lack of comfort but soon learns that the people who live in Paradise prefer their way of living. They are helping to forge the new country as England's rule is no longer. The older folk don't forget it and the youngsters never have to deal with it.

She meets several eligible bachelors for, as fathers of the time tend to do, Judge Middleton wants to see her married to someone of his choosing. Elizabeth has other ideas and eventually runs off with a backwoodsman named Nathaniel Bonner who has grown up among the remaining Mohawk in the area. And that's just the first portion of the book.

It's a well written story. I like all the detail that Ms. Donati has included. I also am somewhat familiar with the area in which the story takes place so it's fun to see places I've been described as they used to be. It's the first in a series as well. I think I'm going to look for the rest of them.

Voyager - Diana Gabaldon

Where to start with this? There's so much that happens.

The basic plot of the story is this: Claire goes back to find Jamie. Her husband died two years prior and her daughter is in her third year of college. She contemplates which would be better for her ... staying with Bree in the present or going back to put her heart together again.

She went back but it wasn't the easy, blissful ending she pictured in her mind. Jamie had changed and so had she. If they'd been together for the prior 20 years, those changes wouldn't have been as obvious. And probably some of them wouldn't have occurred at all. They have a lot to relearn about the other.

While they were newly reunited, Jamie's nephew Ian was kidnapped and taken to the West Indies. They followed him and the usual mayhem ensues on the trip. Jamie's seasickness, Claire's healing (which gets her pushed into the King's service for England) among other things. Fergus and Marsali (Laoghaire's daughter) handfast. There's a snitch among Jamie's men who turns out to be Mr. Willoughby (an Asian that Jamie saved from himself), a murderer on the loose in Jamaica when they get there and more. The new governor of that island is a former jailer and current friend of Jamie's. He has custody of Jamie's bastard son. It just never ends.

And that's what makes this series so compelling. Everything keeps piling up but you just can't put the books down.