I must add another disappointed voice to the chorus...

books:


	• Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe Nancy Goldstone Penguin (Non-Classics), 2008 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 25 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Four Sisters Who All Became Queens in the 1200's.

Reader friendly nonfiction historical. All interesting information about Louis the Ninth, Henry the Third, and others; most interesting to me were the four sisters, but of course the book doesn't concentrate on them as much as the crusades, and the men. I would love a novelist to tackle this story. Loads and loads of info on that time period in France, England, Italy. Not enough on the four sisters.

I must add another disappointed voice to the chorus...

I must admit that I very much looked forward to reading Ms. Goldstone's book, so it was with a growing sense of disappointment that I continued to turn the pages. Ms. Goldstone does have an engaging, albeit uneven, style of writing, but after I started to find spelling incongruities and sloppiness in her representation of facts, I started to feel slightly cheated. Medieval European historical fiction is a favorite reading genre of mine, but I was "underwhelmed" after having read the first few chapters. I have to admit that some of the blame lies with a lazy or incompetent editing staff. It was not published by Oxford or by Cambridge University Presses - it was published by Penguin. Unfortunately, I see more and more sloppy editing these days, but whether it is due to the lazy use of SpellCheck, or to the lack of a certain level of competence in the teaching of spelling, grammar, syntax, etc., in our schools now - I don't honestly know. I just wish that I had waited until Ms. Gladstone's book had come out in paperback before I made my purchase. I will stick to my favorite authors such as Robert Massie, Ken Follett, and Alison Weir, all of whom are far more capable of checking facts before publishing a book!

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Sibling Rivalry in the Thirteenth century

Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe is about the 4 daughters of the Count and Countess of Provence who all became Queens. They are Marguerite (married to Louis, King of France), Eleanor (married to Henry, King of England, Sanchia (married to Richard of Cornwell, later King of Germany) and Beatrice (married to King Louis' brother Charles of Anjou, later King of Sicily).

I was worried that since this was non-fiction it would be dry and boring - a hard read, but I was pleasantly surprised. I really enjoyed the writing and layout of the book (the chapters alternate between the sisters) and the sisters gave the author plenty to write about. What wonderfully strong, intelligent women! The drama within the family is more than adequate for a good read, but through in some wars and crusades and it becomes very interesting! Sibling rivalry at its best!

I highly recommend Four Queens and look forward to learning more about these historical sisters!

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Reading History With Pleasure

While there are indeed some inaccuracies in the book and some moments when the historical moment is glossed over with a single sentence, I found Four Queens to yet be an engaging read. The professional historian would likely choose books authored by other professionals, but certainly Goldstone did an extraordinary amount of research for this book even if she didn't get every detail down. What she did get down makes for good reading - if you're reading for pleasure and enjoy the sagas even softly told of women's history.

Popular History in Search of a Fact Checker

My love of medieval history and soft-spot for popular history made this book a natural for me. The story of four daughters of the Count of Provence who became "queens" is set in an era I've study quite a bit yet (back in college!) I know relatively little about Marguerite, Eleanor, Sanchia and Beatrice.

Any biography of a major figure from the 13 century has hurdles: few contemporaneous first-hand accounts, few to none documents written by the figures themselves, etc. These problems are compounded exponentially when the figure in question is female. All too often, women just didn't rate making it into the chronicles. So Goldstone has her work cut out for her. She makes a valiant effort to piece together the careers and characters of these women drawing conclusions from the smattering of available facts. The reader can take issues with these conclusions but that, to me, is one of the rewards of reading about this era.

All that said, this book was a disappointment. Other reviewers have noted the multitude of factual errors in this book and I have to add my voice to the chorus. Silly, stupid mistakes are present in every single chapter. Were all the fact checkers on vacation when this book was being edited? Did Goldstone get her index cards mixed up? Popular history often needs to tread lightly on the details but never on the facts.

The narrative starts well but writing starts to become heavy going before youngest sister Beatrice hits the stage. Goldstone starts overwhelming the reader with "events" that aren't particularly telling about the four sisters or illuminating of their times. She also over does the adjectives; Sanchia is too frequently "gentle Sanchia", for example. The last quarter of the book was a real trial for me to finish.

I've given this book three stars, the writing and the factual errors would make this book a two but the decent start and the relative obscurity of the topic earn it an extra star from me. If you want an intro to the period this is not the best place to start. If you are immersed in this period, you may find the errors too annoying to bear. If you are interested in learning about these four under-known sisters and their times and are comfortable skipping judiciously, this book may be for you.

Kindle note: photos are included.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Four Queens is a rich pageant of glamour, intrigue, and feminine power at a time when women were thought to have played limited roles. In thirteenth-century Europe, four sisters from a single family?Marguerite, Eleanor, Sanchia, and Beatrice of Provençe?rose from obscurity to become the queens of, respectively, France, England, Germany, and Sicily. All four were beautiful, cultured, and ambitious, and their stories offer a window into the era of chivalry, crusades, poetry, knights, and monarchs that will appeal to fans of Alison Weir and Antonia Fraser.

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