I received this book from Net Galley, courtesy of Crown Publishing. As soon as it downloaded to my kindle, I started reading it and really struggled with putting it down to do normal life things, you know take care of kids and sleep :) Great book, really well written with an interesting, fast-pasted story line and great descriptions of the era.

The story itself is told from three main first person narrators: Pauline, Napoleon's sister; Marie-Louise, Napoleon's second wife (the second empress), an Austrian princess; and Paul, Pauline's Haitian chamberlain. They tell of Napoleon's last six years of reign, from 1809 when he decides to divorce his first wife, Josephine, for failing to provide an heir and remarries an Austrian-born princess, Marie-Louise to 1815, when his reign of France ends.

I really enjoyed the multiple narrators; I think that it added depth and perspective to the narrators themselves, and especially to Napoleon. Some of the most interesting things in this novel are the quotes at the beginning of the chapters and the wonderful letters, with just three being fictionalized by Moran and the rest being real (albeit some are condensed, she states).

Before reading this, I knew little about the period and Napoleon (other than he was short-tempered and not a very large man). The novel made me interested to figure out what was historically accurate and what was story, so for me, the story served its 'historical fiction' purpose. I'd recommend this book to anyone, really, but especially to historical fiction lovers. :)