In which I have a book for you

No, really. This week I got to read the manuscript for Elizabeth Loupas' The Second Duchess, due out in January. And OH MY. It was seriously divine. I was intrigued by the premise--Loupas bases the book on Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess", one of my favorites. It details the remarriage of Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara--a Renaissance prince of tremendous power and prestige--after the death of his first wife, the teenaged Lucrezia de' Medici. Rumored to have had Lucrezia murdered for her infidelities, Alfonso married for a second time, taking for a wife the Archduchess Barbara of Austria. The story is told from Barbara's point of view and is absolutely gripping. I sat down to read it with the expectation that I would put it down after an hour and get on with other things I had to do. Nope. I read straight through until it was finished, and I ended up with a monster case of eyestrain. Completely worth it. Go and pre-order it now. I'll wait.

Coincidentally, in my to-be-read stack is Murder of a Medici Princess by Caroline D. Murphy. Unlike Loupas' book, this is not a novel, but it does chronicle the sanctioned murder of Isabella de' Medici by her husband. He justified the killing on the grounds that Isabella had been habitually unfaithful. And the interesting connection? She happened to be the sister of the hapless Lucrezia.