Short description
The international bestseller that profiles eight of Europe's most famous royal brides, from the author of The Serpent and the Moon and Cupid and the King.
Long description
Who better to write about history's most distinguished and powerful European women than a real princess? Princess Michael of Kent, well-loved after the publication of two popular history books, brings her unique, insider's perspective as a member of the British Royal Family to the fascinating portraits of eight European royal brides. Though of eminent birth and status in their own right, the women of Crowned in a Far Country all left their home countries to marry into the most coveted royal seats in the world. This absorbing book introduces us to the Prussian Princess Catherine, who later became Catherine the Great; to the Archduchess of Austria, later the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette; to Maria Caroline, also an Austrian archduchess, and later the Queen of Naples; to the Austrian Leopoldina, who relocated to a new continent to become the Empress of Brazil; to Eugenie, known as the wife of Louis-Napoleon and Empress of France; to Vicky, daughter of England's Queen Victoria and later Empress of Prussia; and to the Danish sisters who ruled as Queen of England and the Empress of Russia.Not just a window into the politics and power brokering of royal marriage, this work charts the transformations of privileged princesses into women of power and historical importance.
Review
Cecilia Samartin delivers a novel rich in passion, heartbreak and love. Broken Paradise captures the textures and rhythms of my homeland of Cuba with its musical, agile prose and kept me engrossed to the last page. An important, timely work of fiction, it goes to the heart of what it means to be an exile. A truly American story.
-- Victor Rivas Rivers, actor and author of A Private Family Matter