After the death of her husband and the coup ousting her family from power in the new nation of Hayti, Queen Marie-Louise Christophe and her daughters flee to Europe, where they must learn how to navigate a racist society as Black royalty.
I’ve been excited to read this book, because it follows a woman and an area of history I’m not familiar with, and because as a Black monarch, I knew Louise would provide a radically new perspective on the Regency period, which I’ve read about extensively in history books and historical romance.
I thought Riley did a good job of portraying the triumphs and trials that Louise faces both before and after her exile. Though the Christophes were not the first rulers of Haiti, they had plenty of kingdom building to do, and the difficult balance to strike in court between Haiti’s traditions and European-leaning trappings was depicted in detail. I also thought the author did a good job of showing both the difficulties and the joys of Louise and her daughters’ lives as Black royalty in overwhelmingly white Europe.
However, I did think the book was overly long, and this combined with Louise’s private and introspective nature made getting through the book a bit of a slog at times. The synopsis made it seem like there would be a lot more action, political and otherwise, than there really was. This book has a page count of 448; I think the same story could have been told more engagingly with a hundred less. I also wish we spent a little more time in Hayti before the Henri’s death and the fall of the kingdom.
I do plan to check out Riley’s other works still. I did enjoy her style of writing and am still interested in the subjects she writes about – it just didn’t work for me here.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.
