Secret Life of Josephine: Napoleon's Bird of Paradise » (Bargain)

Carolly Erickson is the bestselling author of many distinguished works of nonfiction and a series of historical entertainments, blending fact and invention. She lives in Hawaii.

The bestselling author of The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette and The Last Wife of Henry VIII returns with an enchanting novel about one of the most seductive women in history: Josephine Bonaparte, first wife of Napoleon.

Born on the Caribbean island of Martinique, Josephine had an exotic Creole appeal that would ultimately propel her to reign over an empire as wife of the most powerful man in the world. But her life is a story of ambition and danger, of luck and a ferocious will to survive. Married young to an arrogant French aristocrat who died during the Terror, Josephine also narrowly missed losing her head to the guillotine. But her extraordinary charm, sensuality, and natural cunning helped her become mistress to some of the most powerful politicians in post-revolutionary France. Soon she had married the much younger General Bonaparte, whose armies garnered France an empire that ran from Europe to Africa and the New World and who crowned himself and his wife Emperor and Empress of France. He dominated on the battlefield and she presided over the worlds of fashion and glamour. But Josephine's heart belonged to another man--the mysterious, compelling stranger who had won her as girl in Martinique.

Kathy Piehl - Library Journal

As she approaches the end of her life, Josephine Bonaparte reflects on her glamorous and exciting past. As a 15-year-old beauty on the Caribbean island of Martinique, she met and charmed a French military officer, Scipion du Roure, and then took the first of many lovers, the mysterious Donovan, before leaving for Paris. Josephine's subsequent unhappy marriage to an aristocrat, her narrow escape from death by guillotine, and her involvement with Napoléon all demand that she use her mind and body to gain advantages for herself and her children. Although many of the characters and incidents depicted here have roots in history, Erickson calls her book "historical entertainment, not a historical novel." For example, Josephine undertakes a clandestine journey to Russia, where she delays Napoléon's retreat and helps hasten his defeat. Her ongoing affair with Donovan, her heroic exploits during a slave rebellion, and other plot twists also reveal the author's method of "blending fact and whimsy." Fans of Erickson's earlier historical fiction (The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette; The Last Wife of Henry VIII) will enjoy this latest concoction. Readers seeking a more substantive historical re-creation of Josephine's life might consider Sandra Gulland's trilogy, starting with The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.