Review: The Secret Life of Josephine: Napoleon’s Bird of Paradise by Carolly Erickson

Title: The Secret Life of Josephine: Napoleon’s Bird of Paradise
Author: Carolly Erickson
Genre: Historical
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Pages: 336
Copy Origin: Bought from Amazon.
Get Your Own Copy From: The Book Depository

Carolly Erickson is another Historian gone rogue. She has written three historical ‘entertainment’ books as she likes to call them. I am a huge fan of her work. The Last Wife of Henry VIII was the first book I read from Carolly, her brilliant use of language and creative escapades thrown in with a history she actually is deeply knowledgeable about makes her a leading Historical Fiction author.
Erickson shows us that Josephine was more than just the tainted lady she is historically painted as being. She had a heart and children and loved more fiercely than most of her time. She saw Marie Antoinette fall from power into disgrace. She herself was in prison during the revolution for being the wife of a traitor to the cause. She loved many men and married two whom she didn’t love.
My favorite parts of the novel were the explanations of her childhood growing up on the island of Martinique. Her father and mother had a plantation and she had such an easy childhood. Playing on the beach. Climbing mountains to visit sorcerers, I am sure if at any point Josephine had been given a chance she would have stayed a child on that island instead of traveling on a wretched filthy boat to France.
What is great about Erickson is at the end of the books she pens she gives a description of what was historically accurate and what she threw in for entertainment value.
This book really made me want to pick up some more works on Josephine and find out more about her tragic and exciting life. If you like the works of Alison Weir, Philippa Gregory, and Barbara Ewing you will love this novel.