Carlota

In the late 1800's Maximillian von Habsburg and his wife Carlotta were handed the Mexican throne. This story follows Carlotta back and forth in time as she tries to hold her kingdom and sanity together.

The first third of the book was well written, engaging, and hard to put down. The rest of the book felt disjointed, almost as if two different authors were writing. After a while, the back and forth in time became distracting and off-putting. Although I was excited to read about a part of history that I knew absolutely nothing about, this book was not for me.

Found I couldn't get into this book with its huge cast of characters,

Empress, a work of historical fiction, concerning Mexico and the second empire. The rulers of this empire was Maximillian an Archduke of Austria and a brother of the Empe5mror of Austria and Charlotte a princess of Belgium and cousin of Queen Victoria. Maximillian and Charlotte were invited by the French Emperor Napoleon III and the conservative party in Mexico to engage in a bit of empire building in the Americas and establish the second empire in Mexico. By doing this Max and Charlotte would becoEmpe5mt5eror and Empress of Mexico and by extension lead busier and more fulfilling lives which up until then had been pretty aimless. This book has a full cast of charecters, some historical and some not, that support Max and Charlotte on their ill fated adventure and make for very good reading. I liked that the book concentrated on Charlotte and did not have too many characters as many historical novels do, trying to mention everyone involved plus a few made up ones, making it almost impossible to keep straight who is who unless you are already familiar with the history which I was not. I also liked the way the author mentioned What else was going on in the world at the time to orient to the time these events were taking place. What I did not like we're the flashbacks in time which I am not a fan of as I much prefer a straight forward story. I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for a review. The book captured my imagination and I read it in about two days.