queen, consort of henry ii, king of france

In the winter of 1564, young Princess Margot is sent to the court of France to marry Henri of Navarre in a political alliance planned by her mother, Queen Catherine de M?dicis. When Margot's wedding turns into a violent massacre, she will be forced to choose between her family and her soul.

The Befanini family rules the kitchens of the de Medici and their allies, serving well by fortifying their patrons' reputations and influence with all the power that a brilliant meal can supply. Young Ginevra Befanini serves more directly as companion and confidante to Caterina de Medici, while Ginevra's brother Tommaso is learning his family's craft and enhancing it with his own ideas and talents. The political forces of Renaissance Florence pull and push at them; plague stalks them; and other alien forces move through the kitchens and the city, menacing Caterina and her friends.

Marguerite de Valois is considered the most beautiful woman in the French Court in 1565 and is in love with Henri of Guise, but her mother, Catherine de Medici, and brothers have other plans, forcing Marguerite to marry Henry of Navarre, and leading Marguerite and her new husband into a hostage situation in the midst of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew.

With the rampant slaughter of Huguenots at its peak and her beloved Marquis Fabien away on a privateering voyage, Rachelle Dusbane-Macquinet, a couturiere from one of France's foremost silk making families, welcomes the summons to return to Catherine de Medici's court and the opportunity to spy on the evil queen.

Rachelle Macquinet, a couturiere from one of France's most celebrated silk-making families, struggles to keep her eyes on God when Queen Mother Catherine de Medici tries to implicate her beloved husband Fabien in an assassination plot.

Rachelle Dusbane-Macquinet accompanies her grandmother, a famous couturiere, to Paris to create a silk trousseau for the Royal Princess Marguerite Valois, and becomes caught up in the intrigue at the Court, risking her life to warn the handsome Marquis Fabien de Vendome of a wicked plot against his family concocted by the regent, Catherine de Medici.

A fictionalized account of the life of Catherine de Medici, wife to King Henry II and mother-in-law to Mary, Queen of Scots, that examines the darker aspects of Catherine's life, including her desperate acts to win her husband's love and bear his children.

While her tyrannical family is out of favor in Italy, young Catherine de Medici is raised in convents, then in 1533, when she is fourteen, her uncle, Pope Clement VII, arranges for her marriage to prince Henri of France, who is destined to become king.