I read the first book. I found it flat and not very exciting. Due to my dissatisfaction with book one, I didn't bother moving on to book two. I'd rather find something more worthy of my time.
I generally love books deeply rooted in European or Early American history. Jean Plaidy is said to be a very good author, but I'm just not a fan of her work. Perhaps it will suit you, but I'm going to stick with Phillippa Gregory! ( )

Interesting book. It took quite a while to read and I did leave it aside at times to read other books. Glad I finished it. It showed Lucretia Borgia in a totally different light to what is normally written of her. One thinks of her as evil whereas in this book she is definitely not. In fact pity is the emotion felt for her when reading this book. ( )

I admittedly don't know much about the Borgias other than what is common knowledge so this book was really interesting to me. It was mostly about Lucrezia, but told from several points of view so you get more of a picture of what's going on than just from her perspective. I loved that even from when they were children you got the sense that Cesare was going to be just a terrible terrible person. What I found most fascinating was how Plaidy chose to paint Lucrezia in such an innocent light. She was for the most part wholly unaware of any wrong doing on the part of The Pope and her brothers. By the time she realized what was really going on she knew that she was too far gone to do much else than keep loving her family and hope for the best.

I'm not sure what I thought of this second book on Lucrezia Borgia. To me it almost seemed like the second part of a trilogy rather than the end of a 2 part set, nothing went right for any of the people you wanted it to and everything wen right for their enemies. I couldn't help but think I would have liked the book a whole lot better if there had been a little more happy endings than cold hard facts. Or maybe I was just looking for something happy to happen for poor Lucrezia.

Over all it wasn't bad, and maybe in time I'll find that I really liked it, but for now the best I can give it is 3 stars. ( )