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Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power
by Leah Redmond Chang
The boldly original, dramatic intertwined story of Catherine de' Medici, Elisabeth de Valois, and Mary, Queen of Scots - three queens exercising power in a world dominated by men.
Orphaned from infancy, Catherine de' Medici endured a tumultuous childhood. Married to the French king, she was widowed by forty, only to become the power behind the French throne during a period of intense civil strife. In 1546, Catherine gave birth to a daughter, Elisabeth de Valois, who would become Queen of Spain. Two years later, Catherine welcomed to her nursery the beguiling young Mary Queen of Scots, who would later become her daughter-in-law.
Together, Catherine, Elisabeth, and Mary lived through the sea changes that transformed sixteenth-century Europe, a time of expanding empires, religious discord, and populist revolt, as concepts of nationhood began to emerge and ideas of sovereignty inched closer to absolutism. They would learn that to rule as a queen was to wage a constant war against the deeply entrenched misogyny of their time.
Following the intertwined stories of the three women from girlhood through young adulthood, Leah Redmond Chang's Young Queens paints a picture of a world in which a woman could wield power at the highest level yet remain at the mercy of the state, her body serving as the currency of empire and dynasty, sacrificed to the will of husband, family, kingdom.
"Chang...ensnares readers with her painstakingly rendered, intertwined narrative about three royal women in 16th-century Europe: Catherine de' Medici, Elisabeth de Valois, and Mary, Queen of Scots. Refreshingly, the author doesn't merely rehearse her subjects' daily lives. By using intimate, personal accounts gleaned from her extensive research, Chang transports readers directly into their world...A delightful historical study of women coming to the forefront in a world dominated by men." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A] sympathetic study...Chang wisely adds context by also delving into the motivations of Elizabeth I and Philip II, but ignores previous examples of powerful medieval queen mothers whose experiences may have emboldened Catherine's far-ranging ambitions. Nevertheless, this sheds valuable light on interpersonal feelings and familial relations often missed in more traditional accounts of political power." —Publishers Weekly
"Alluring, gripping, real: an astonishing insight into the lives of three queens, stepping out from the shadows of the patriarchy―we meet them on their own terms." ―Alice Roberts, author of Ancestors and Buried
"This exceptionally brilliant book, deft of phrase and vividly realized, conveys the vitality of the past as few books do. It's an enviable tour de force and marks the arrival of a wonderful new voice in narrative history." ―Suzannah Lipscomb, author of A Visitor's Companion to Tudor England and host of the hit podcast Not Just the Tudors
"This exceptionally researched narrative successfully weaves together the stories of three of the most intriguing queens in sixteenth-century Europe, revealing them to be integral parts both of one another's lives and the complex worlds in which they lived. Leah Redmond Chang expertly navigates the tumultuous waters of the French, Spanish and Scottish courts, and in so doing brings these fascinating queens to brilliant and vivid life." ―Nicola Tallis, author of Elizabeth's Rival and Uncrowned Queen
This information about Young Queens was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Leah Redmond Chang is a former associate professor of French literature and culture at the George Washington University. Her writing draws on her extensive experience as a researcher in the archives and in rare book libraries. Her previous books include Into Print: The Invention of Female Authorship in Early Modern France, which focused on women and book culture in the sixteenth century, and (with Katherine Kong) Portraits of the Queen Mother, about the many public faces of Catherine de Medici. With her husband and three children, she lives in Washington, DC, and London, UK.
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