This hour, our guest is Nancy Goldstone, author of The Rival Queens: Catherine de Medici, Her Daughter Marguerite de Valois, and the Betrayal That Ignited a Kingdom (Little, Brown and Company, June 2015). These werent just any 16th-century queens; these women engaged in love affairs, group sex, killing sprees, and much, much more. Goldstone researched these royal families exhaustively and boiled it down to a book that reads like a transcript of the latest season of Real Housewives.

Music this hour:

“Elle va au Japon” by Nic Bommarito, from the album A Quiet Age

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

Entrance to the Queen of Sheba for Two Oboes, Strings, and Continuo allegro by George Frideric Handel, performed by Advent Chamber Orchestra