Eleanor Herman

I started off being completely on Olimpia's side: fuck the patriarchy! And then, because she was a real person with all the complexities and contradictions that entails, it got complicated. So my feelings about her as a person are layered, but my feelings about this book are simple: fantastic read!

Olimpia Maidalchini’s father, lacking assets to pay a dowry worth his class, tried to put her in a convent. She ran away and never looked back. After a sketchy few years, she married and widowed into vast wealth—enough to fund the papacy for her second husband’s brother, Pope Innocent X. Was she brash, manipulative, free-thinking? Heck yea when the alternative is meek silent acceptance of her lot in life. An otherwise boring tale is never that. Every single sentence is interesting and show more propels the real-life story of this woman, in a world that rejects women at all costs (unless you’re the pope who depended on her to win you the papacy). She supported Rome’s prostitutes as well as her sisters and other women forced into nunneries. She built homes for the poor and paid for dowries to keep poor women from the convents. How can you not love her? I loved this book. A top pick for best book of 2026. I loved revisiting so many places I visited three years ago in Rome and learned so much more about the people I admired (I’m looking at you Bernini!). A brilliant book by an awesome author. show less

Such a fun read! How engaged modern students in history classes would be if their textbooks were as rich and vibrant as Sex with the Queen! All scandals aside, the vivid details mixed with well-documented facts, pull the reader into a world long since gone but instantly come alive and real. This was beyond pleasurable to read, heartbreaking and devastating to experience. Honest, with raw emotions, this book honors the women who chose their own paths, despite society's norms and followed show more their hearts into uncharted waters. show less

This book presents the lives of European royalty in the good old bad old days, when people wore toxic makeup, poo was everywhere, and royal households employed food tasters and underpant-tryers-on to ensure that the monarchs were not being poisoned. The book begins with a bigger-picture overview of what living conditions were like for royalty across Europe, then the focus shifts to about 20 various notable figures who have been believed at one point or another to be poisoned. The book show more concludes with chapters on poisoning in the modern day.

I really liked the presentation of this book and learned a great deal about just how filthy royal palaces were. The profiles of individual people were supplemented by results from modern forensic investigations as well as contemporary autopsies where available. And what really tickled me about reading this book was the constant mentioning of Ambroise Paré, who provided the inspiration for the pen name “Ambrose Parry”, used by husband-and-wife writing team Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman.

I’d recommend this book if you’re looking for a delightfully disgusting read. show less