The Vatican Princess: a Novel of Lucrezia Borgia, C.W. Gortner

For fans of Philippa Gregory and Alison Weir, a gripping novel that follows the extraordinary life of young Lucrezia Borgia, the legendary Renaissance Pope Alexander’s beautiful daughter. Was she the heartless seductress of legend? Or merely an unsuspecting pawn in a familial web, forced to choose between loyalty and her own survival?

Glamorous and predatory, the Borgias became Italy’s most ruthless and powerful family, electrifying and terrorizing their 15th-century Renaissance world.

To this day, Lucrezia Borgia is known as one of history’s most notorious villainesses, accused of incest and luring men to doom with her arsenal of poison.

International bestselling author C.W. Gortner’s new novel delves beyond the myth to depict Lucrezia in her own voice, from her pampered childhood in the palaces of Rome to her ill-fated, scandalous arranged marriages and complex relationship with her adored father and her rival brothers—brutal Juan and enigmatic Cesare.

This is the dramatic, untold story of a papal princess who came of age in an era of savage intrigue and unparalleled splendor, and whose courage led her to overcome the fate imposed on her by her Borgia blood.

C.W.’s THE VATICAN PRINCESS, exploring the dramatic youth of the infamous 15th-century beauty, Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Spanish-born Pope Alexander VI, and rumored, among other things, to have been the lover of both her father and her brother, will be published in February, 2016 by Ballantine Books in the US and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK.

C.W. Gortner is half-Spanish by birth and spent his formative years in southern Spain, where his lifelong fascination with history began. He is author of THE LAST QUEEN, THE CONFESSIONS OF CATHERINE DE MEDICI, THE QUEEN'S VOW and, writing as Christopher Gortner, THE TUDOR SECRET. His books have garnered international acclaim and been translated into fourteen languages to date. He divides his time between Northern California and Antigua, Guatemala. He welcomes visitors at: www.cwgortner.com.