This was a slow starter for me but as a Francophile, once I really began to sense the important history of France I was reading about and all the real life people who had such huge parts to play in what France became and has become — I couldn’t put it down!! Loved it!

I'm a fanatic when it comes to these types of books but this one, I must say, was on another level. Has been the impetus for me to delve much further into the Swedish/Scandinavian monarchial histories. Enlightened me with regard to shedding more clarity on the history of Napoleon and Josephine. Excellent. Hate that it's finished.

Wonderful book. Loved reading about Desiree.

I have enjoyed the story of Desirée Clary since I read Annemarie Selinko’s novel, Desirée, when I was a teenager in the 1960’s. So I was looking forward to this book. But this is the same story, written in the same first person voice, starting at the same place with her brother’s arrest In Marseille leading to her meeting the Bonapartes. I was disappointed that the only difference between the two books is this one’s slightly longer treatment of her time after the Swedish coronation.