Madame Serpent
Jean Plaidy
Sullen-eyed and broken-hearted, fourteen-year-old Catherine de' Medici arrives in Marseilles to marry Henry of Orleans, second son of the King of France. On the promise of a dowry fit for a king, Catherine has left her true love in Italy, forced into trading her future for a stake in the French crown.
Amid the glittering fêtes and banquets of the most immoral court in sixteenth-century Europe, the reluctant bride becomes a passionate but unwanted wife. Humiliated and unloved, Catherine spies on Henry and his lover, the infamous Diane de Poitiers. And, tortured by what she sees, Catherine becomes dangerously occupied by a ruthless ambition destined to make her the most despised woman in France: the dream that one day the French crown will be worn be a Medici heir...
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About Jean Plaidy
Reviews for Madame Serpent
Matt Bates
WH Smith Travel
Madame Serpent is the best kind of historical novel - one into which we sink with pleasure and a feeling of undeserved education
Spectator
Plaidy excels at blending history with romance and drama
New York Times
Jean Plaidy, by the skilful blending of superb storytelling and meticulous attention to authenticity of detail and depth of charaterization has become one of the country's most widely read novelists
Sunday Times
Full-blooded, dramatic, exciting
Observer
One of England's foremost historical novelists
Birmingham Mail
This is at once an exciting and an intelligent novel
Truth Magazine
A colourful story colourfully told
Northern Daily Record