Désirée Clary by François Gérard (1810) Like many writers, I have always been a voracious reader. Luckily, my mom is also a book addict and happily enabled her daughters addiction. My favorite stories were about human connection. Relationships between siblings, strangers, and soul mates fascinated me equally. I don’t remember the first romance novel I read, but I do remember shocking my Swedish seventh-grade history teacher by my extensive historical knowledge of how the current ruling family of Sweden was founded. All the kids in my class knew the event took place in 1818 by a French general named Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte. And that he changed his name to Charles XIV John when he was elected heir presumptive to the Swedish throne. (The royal family was dying out because of too much inbreeding. Seriously!) We learned those details from our textbook. But I was the only student who rambled on about King Bernadotte's queen, Desideria, and the challenges she faced when sh...
READ. REVIEW. REPEAT.