This is a story that's hard to put down - author Michelle Moran is the genuine deal, a competent and sometimes graceful historical novelist who can tell a story, give you a sense of the era, make you care about the real, yet long-dead characters, and, afterwards, resort to Wikipedia to find out even more.

Austrian princess Maria-Lucia, or Marie-Louise as she becomes once wed to Napoleon Bonaparte as his second wife, is the second empress of the title. She was by all historical accounts a perfect empress even at the age of 19 - with a strong sense of duty to her people, and smart enough to keep the megalomaniac Napoleon pleased with her. That was tough since his sisters were set against her (they would have been against anyone) and since he was still in love with his first empress, Josephine, who kept her title. Marie-Louise was the oldest daughter of Habsburg Emperor Francis I, and had long been expected to serve as regent for her brother, who suffered up to 20 seizures a day. She was taught statecraft.

I enjoyed Moran's coasting back and forth between the chapters written from Marie-Louise's point-of-view; the chapters written from the point of view of Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon's beautiful and crazy sister; and the chapters from the point of view of Pauline's chamberlain, Paul Moreau, who seems to be a historical figure, a man from Haiti whose father was French and whose mother was of African ancestry. He is in love with Pauline, and he is a confidant of Napoleon. Paul and Marie-Louise are sympathetic and fascinating characters; the Bonapartes are completely unsympathetic.

If there's a criticism to be made of The Second Empress, I suppose this two-dimensionality would be it; however, the history shows Napoleon to have been brutal and Pauline promiscuous, self-centered, and self-indulgent. They were both borderline sociopaths. Moran does give Napoleon credit for his system of laws and she shows him as insecure about his humble origins. That was enough dimensionality for me.

This was a fast, fun read, a quick escape from Denver's hot summer to early nineteenth century Austria, Paris, and Haiti. I'd recommend it.

(Thanks to firstreads for my copy!)