Will I love Désirée?

I read this book first as a teenager and it was my original introduction to Napoleon and the French Revolution. The story of young love, betrayal, and the stirring events in France before, during, and after Napoleon becomes Emperor, the novel is told as a diary, which lends the book immediacy and poignancy.

As a Jewish reader, I particularly enjoyed Selinko’s description of how Désirée’s Jewish neighbors marched off to war, having been given citizenship for the first time in millennia.

I’ve read this book countless times, both as a young reader and as an adult, and it continues to… show more.

Sometimes you want to know what happens after. What happens after King Gustav is assassinated, his son is deemed unfit and abdicates, and the next King — Gustav’s brother Karl — dies without an heir? Eventually, Sweden ends up with a King brought in from France. Huh?! This book is a bit old-fashioned but a fun, easy read that weaves together French and Swedish history with the story of Désirée Clary, the daughter of a silk merchant who was Napoleon Bonaparte’s first love and later became Queen of Sweden as the wife of General Jean Baptiste Bernadotte. (The Bernadottes… show more.