The Serpent and the Pearl

All my audio reads are usually in first person narrative, it feels like the protagonist is with me telling her/his story. This book had three key players. Giulia, Leonello and Carmelina were all brought to life by 3 wonderful readers. They had the right accents, and each told their story clearly and with the right amount of wit and emotions.They couldn't tell their stories without Kate Quinn doing an excellent job of writing them. She was able to mix fact with fiction and made me fall in love with those three, they were written in such a way that made me feel for their different circumstances. From Giulia's hurt and disappointment on her wedding night to Carmelina's first impression of Rome with the smells (rot - maybe you need the audio to appreciate her reaction). From romance to murder, mystery to corruption and betrayal to friendships, this book had it all.Set in a time in history that I was unfamiliar with it was a joy to take this ride with Giulia, Leonello and Carmelina. I've heard of the Borgia's before and how corrupt they were and this book has me wanting to learn more. The cultural side during that time period was interesting and informative also, I especially enjoyed the cooking aspect of the novel.I finished this book with an urgent need to bake a torte and am now toying with the ideal of rereading The Iliad. Also wondering when the companion cookbook is coming out.

I just discovered this book by chance. I have read almost all of Kate Quinn's "war" books. This novel took me into a part of history which I did not know much about, so it was certainly an eye opener. As always, Kate Quinn made it realistic and I almost felt that I was right there with the characters. Using three narrators gave a very "rounded" picture of the life they lived. An interesting read for sure!

Ein lesenswerter historischer Roman über die Borgias von Kate Quinn.Zustand des Buches entsprach nicht des angegebenen; war eher mangelhaft.

I was so glad when I found out about this book since there are a lot of historical fiction books about England and France but not very many about other countries and the fact that I had always wanted to learn more about the Borgia family since studying the Roman history in school many years ago.Each chapter of this book has three parts describing events and people from the viewpoint of three different people: Guilia Farnese, Rodrigo Borgia's mistress, Carmelina Mangano, her cook, and Leonelle, her body guard. Initially very slow and with not much content, the book gets very interesting and suspenseful after the first hundred pages or so. Most of the people in the book appear one dimensional with the exception of Carmelina, supposed to be based on the author's husband's grandmother. There is not much of a story line in this book to cover almost four hundred pages but the book is so captivating and is so hard to put down because the story telling is priceless, vividly describing events and physical facts. After a while, one can't help but losing one's self in the story line and caring about the people in the book wondering what is coming next.I find this book very entertaining and interesting sprinkled with some historical facts. However, this is a romance novel about Guilia Farnese not about the Borgia family members who are mentioned in the book only when the story line relates to her. Two of the three narrators of the book, Carmelina and Leonelle, didn't exist but were created by the author who admits taking liberties with the historical facts. One of them being the main theme of the book: the love and passion shared by eighteen years old Guilia Farnese, and sixty two year old Rodrigo Borgia. By looking at the historical facts and the women's place in the society at the time, we can easily say this was not a relationship of equals but it was a corrupt, self-serving and ruthless person with unlimited power claiming whatever he felt like taking including a married eighteen year old girl from her husband with the purpose of being served and pleased. I have also found the language used in some parts of the book in bad taste like the parts when Carmelina threatens someone with cutting her thumbs off and goes on describing in detail how she would cook them with garlic and olive oil and make the person eat them. Another instance is doing the same thing with someone else's ears and then the part where she tells a cat how they drown cats in a cistern and how she would eat him after making a sausage out of it with fennel and pork fat going on and on. Yuck! If I wanted that kind of language, I would read horror books.If you like romance novels, this is a well-written one but what you want is to learn more about Rodrigo Borgia and his children, find another book.

`The Serpent of and the Pearl' is the captivating tale of Giulia Farnese, mistress of Pope Alexander VI. The novel begins in 1492 with the wedding of eighteen-year-old beauty Giulia Farnese to Orsino Orsini and finishes with the invasion of the French in 1494. Carmelina, a spirited cook with secrets, and Leonello, a bodyguard with wits as sharp as his knives join sliver-tongued Giulia as narrators and witnesses to the rise of the infamous Borgia clan. The story is a mixture of surprising seductions, gruesome murders accompanied by a large dose of dark humour and no small amount of cooking. This book will shock you, make you laugh and it most certainly will ruin your diet.The feel of Renaissance Rome is really well recreated in the story, especially by Carmelina and her amazing senses of smell and taste. I liked the musings on the Renaissance's very ridged roles for woman (nun, wife or whore) between Giulia and Carmelina, whether they had to pick and stick with one forever, as Giulia's mother believed, or if they could be more flexible, as Carmelina claimed. The confrontation between Giulia and Vannozza dei Cattani was delicious to read, I couldn't put the book down during that scene. I was trying to work out Carmelina's past throughout the whole book, while Leonello's hunt for a serial killer with a nasty habit for staking young women had me on the edge of my seat and biting my nails. I loved that for all her famed beauty Giulia, for whom every occasion is an occasion to eat, struggled to maintain her figure. Any scene in the kitchen Carmelina completely dominated and kept me giggling (if feeling slightly sorry for the apprentices). I really felt for Giulia when neither her husband nor lover believed Laura was actually theirs, and I would personally like to find out what her parentage really is, maybe in the sequel?The characters are all very different which makes each perspective very interesting to read, as they are well rounded with realistic flaws. Giulia, Leonello and Carmelina are each in their own way outsiders in Renaissance society. The relationship between Giulia and Rodrigo Borgia was handled sensitively and more importantly was plausible, especially as it is a love affair between a teenage beauty and a man forty years her senior. The author portrayed the romance very well. The Borgia family themselves where recreated realistically - from lecherous, pest-like Juan, to sweet little Lucrezia, to sexy, sinister Cesare. Giulia grew and evolved over the novel as she revaluated what was important to her in her life, whilst Leonello's ultimate loyalty to Giulia, despite all his cruel asides, in the end was very touching. I cannot wait to see what happens to Giulia, Carmelina and Leonella in the next book, especially as `The Serpent and The Pearl' ends on quite a dramatic cliffhanger!I sometimes felt that the purpose of this book was to set up for the next book, and while I would much rather have a properly set up story and I enjoyed it very much, I did want a little bit more resolution by end and for the story to stretch that little bit further. However, this is a relatively minor thing and did not impact on my overall enjoyment of the story.I would definitely recommend this book to lovers of historical fiction and cannot wait for the next in the series, The Lion and the Rose (Novel of the Borgias).