You read the jacket and you want to like this book. I wanted to like this book. Roessner even provides a Cast of Characters index and four food recipes at the end of the book. Clearly Roessner has done the artistic, culinary, and political research necessary for a work which depends heavily on a historical period.
Problem is that the story never comes alive.
Then there are those cats which keep you wondering whose familiars they really are. Catherine de' Medici comes across as little more than a mechanical doll, even at her most vulnerable moments of a shared kiss with Ippolito or running through the streets in search of a church's sanctuary. Now the Cardinal and his entourage bring some splash and dash to the story during their brief appearances. But this is mainly due to the fact that Roessner does a better job of describing their distinctive physical attributes than she does with most of the other characters. Basically, Roessner is often downright stingy with physical descriptions of anything except food.