Marguerite -- A Novel

Artwork by Amanda Carlin

     ​Marguerite de Valois was a woman ahead of her time, the first woman to write and publish her own memoirs. Famously beautiful, sister to the King of France, keenly intellectual, a polyglot who spoke Greek and Latin fluently -- but also the daughter of the notorious Catherine de Medici, who did her best to make her daughter's life hell.  The victim of a forced marriage to the Huguenot Henri of Navarre for political reasons, the Catholic Marguerite found herself torn between the two loyalties - to her husband and to her religion --  in a life of constant jeopardy. When she finally found true love with another, her situation became even more complicated. 

     The novel is told in journal form, from Marguerite's early years as a naive and pampered princess to her political awakening and desperate attempts to survive a nearly unsurvivable situation. But through it all, Marguerite never loses her wry sense of humor.