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Title: Blood & Beauty

Subtitle: The Borgias; A Novel

Author: Sarah Dunant

Narrator: Edoardo Ballerini

Format: Unabridged

Length: 17 hrs and 35 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-16-13

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 274 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

The New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Italian Renaissance novelsThe Birth of Venus, In the Company of the Courtesan, and Sacred Heartshas an exceptional talent for breathing life into history. Now Sarah Dunant turns her discerning eye to one of the worlds most intriguing and infamous familiesthe Borgiasin an engrossing work of literary fiction.

By the end of the fifteenth century, the beauty and creativity of Italy is matched by its brutality and corruption, nowhere more than in Rome and inside the Church. When Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia buys his way into the papacy as Alexander VI, he is defined not just by his wealth or his passionate love for his illegitimate children, but by his blood: He is a Spanish Pope in a city run by Italians. If the Borgias are to triumph, this charismatic, consummate politician with a huge appetite for life, women, and power must use papacy and familyin particular, his eldest son, Cesare, and his daughter Lucreziain order to succeed.

Cesare, with a dazzlingly cold intelligence and an even colder soul, is his greatestthough increasingly unstableweapon. Later immortalized in Machiavellis The Prince, he provides the energy and the muscle. Lucrezia, beloved by both men, is the prime dynastic tool. Twelve years old when the novel opens, hers is a journey through three marriages, and from childish innocence to painful experience, from pawn to political player.

Stripping away the myths around the Borgias, Blood & Beauty is a majestic novel that breathes life into this astonishing family and celebrates the raw power of history itself: compelling, complex and relentless.

Members Reviews:

Start with Other Dunant Books

I was disappointed with this novel. I've read and loved several other books by Sarah Dunant, but this one didn't live up to the others. My feeling is that she got so involved with her research and wanting to retell the historical events from the point of view she had adopted, that she somehow forgot to create credible and fully formed characters. In wanting to present a more "balanced" view of the Borgias, who, based on recent historical research, appear not to have been the monsters they've been made out to beindeed, the current thinking is they behaved in a way congruent with the times they lived inthe story seemed to me to lack the excitement and spice one would have expected from the title. Yes, there is murder and plenty of blood is spilled, but somehow all this seems to be at a remove, as seen from the eyes of a historian rather than a talented fiction writer. While her other books have all carried me away and made me want to follow the flow of her stories and live with the characters for a while, this one felt stiff and formulaic and frankly, rather boring in the end. I'm still giving it a decent rating because I'm a great lover of historical fiction and Dunant certainly did her homework in that sense, but this is not the book I would recommend to someone new to her writing.

Different, Sympathetic

Sarah Dunant made the right choice to take a step back from a first person POV in this book and use a more distant, almost impartial narration. It does make the story less engaging and a bit harder to follow or immerse oneself in, but it allows the reader to have a bit more sympathy for this infamous family and their intrigues.