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Queen of Paris
SHE RULED AN EMPIRE OF PASSION
Daughter of a Virginia rebel, Richilde was raised in the fires of the French Revolution, destined to flower into radiant womanhood in a Paris red with the blood of the aristocracy.
She came with nothing -- yet became one of the wealthiest women in France. For her icy beauty was to capture the heart of a man who would become the most brilliant general and most feared ruler in all Europe.
From the fevered pleasurues of war-torn Paris to the exotic shores of Egypt, from a life of bitter poverty to unimaginable wealth, loved or hated by all who knew her, Richilde wielded her sensual weapons in a world inflamed by war.
But there was only one man who commanded her heart, a man as ruthless in love as he was in war...a man called Napoleon.
Daughter of a Virginia rebel, Richilde was raised in the fires of the French Revolution, destined to flower into radiant womanhood in a Paris red with the blood of the aristocracy.
She came with nothing -- yet became one of the wealthiest women in France. For her icy beauty was to capture the heart of a man who would become the most brilliant general and most feared ruler in all Europe.
From the fevered pleasurues of war-torn Paris to the exotic shores of Egypt, from a life of bitter poverty to unimaginable wealth, loved or hated by all who knew her, Richilde wielded her sensual weapons in a world inflamed by war.
But there was only one man who commanded her heart, a man as ruthless in love as he was in war...a man called Napoleon.
- GenresHistorical Romance
410 pages, Paperback
First published June 22, 1979
25 people want to read
About the author
Christina Nicholson
6 books4 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Christopher Robin Nicole was born on 7 December 1930 in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana), where he was raised. He is the son of Jean Dorothy (Logan) and Jack Nicole, a police officer, both Scottish. He studied at Queen's College in Guyana and at Harrison College in Barbados. He was a fellow at the Canadian Bankers Association and a clerk for the Royal Bank of Canada in Georgetown and Nassau from 1947 to 1956. In 1957, he moved to Guernsey, Channel Islands, United Kingdom, where he currently lives, but he also has a domicile in Spain.
On 31 March 1951, he married his first wife, Jean Regina Amelia Barnett, with whom he had two sons, Bruce and Jack, and two daughters, Julie and Ursula, they divorced. On 8 May 1982 he married for the second time with fellow writer Diana Bachmann.
As a romantic and passionate of history, Nicole has been published since 1957, when he published a book about West Indian Cricket. He published his first novel in 1959 with his first stories set in his native Caribbean. Later he wrote many historical novels set mostly in tumultuous periods like World War I, World War II and the Cold War, and depict places in Europe, Asia and Africa. He also wrote classic romance novels. He specialized in Series and Sagas, and continues to write into the 21st century with no intention of retiring.
He signs his books as Christopher Nicole and uses several pseudonyms, some of them female. Pseudonyms used include: Peter Grange, Andrew York, Robin Cade, Mark Logan, Christina Nicholson, Alison York, Leslie Arlen, Robin Nicholson, C. R. Nicholson, Daniel Adams, Simon McKay, Caroline Gray and Alan Savage. He wrote disaster thrillers in collaboration with his wife, Diana Bachmann, under the penname Max Marlow. Under his different pseudonyms he has worked with many publishing houses: Jarrolds, Hutchinson, Simon & Schuster, Coward-McCann & Geoghegan, Jove, Michael Joseph, Mills & Boon, and Severn House.
Christopher Robin Nicole was born on 7 December 1930 in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana), where he was raised. He is the son of Jean Dorothy (Logan) and Jack Nicole, a police officer, both Scottish. He studied at Queen's College in Guyana and at Harrison College in Barbados. He was a fellow at the Canadian Bankers Association and a clerk for the Royal Bank of Canada in Georgetown and Nassau from 1947 to 1956. In 1957, he moved to Guernsey, Channel Islands, United Kingdom, where he currently lives, but he also has a domicile in Spain.
On 31 March 1951, he married his first wife, Jean Regina Amelia Barnett, with whom he had two sons, Bruce and Jack, and two daughters, Julie and Ursula, they divorced. On 8 May 1982 he married for the second time with fellow writer Diana Bachmann.
As a romantic and passionate of history, Nicole has been published since 1957, when he published a book about West Indian Cricket. He published his first novel in 1959 with his first stories set in his native Caribbean. Later he wrote many historical novels set mostly in tumultuous periods like World War I, World War II and the Cold War, and depict places in Europe, Asia and Africa. He also wrote classic romance novels. He specialized in Series and Sagas, and continues to write into the 21st century with no intention of retiring.
He signs his books as Christopher Nicole and uses several pseudonyms, some of them female. Pseudonyms used include: Peter Grange, Andrew York, Robin Cade, Mark Logan, Christina Nicholson, Alison York, Leslie Arlen, Robin Nicholson, C. R. Nicholson, Daniel Adams, Simon McKay, Caroline Gray and Alan Savage. He wrote disaster thrillers in collaboration with his wife, Diana Bachmann, under the penname Max Marlow. Under his different pseudonyms he has worked with many publishing houses: Jarrolds, Hutchinson, Simon & Schuster, Coward-McCann & Geoghegan, Jove, Michael Joseph, Mills & Boon, and Severn House.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
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April 13, 2023Going back in the tbr pile, because I need to be in a specific mood to read French Revolution/Reign of Terror.
(NTS: stopped @ chapter 2, start over.)
(NTS: stopped @ chapter 2, start over.)
January 3, 2017
I read this book twice when I was nine or ten. Alright, that's a lie. I read it so many times I could recite some of the pages verbatim. It was my dirty little secret; filled with taboos I could only imagine at the time. I wonder what I will think of it now should I read it again. Sigh.
July 2, 2021
God, this book is dire.
It's 165,000 words long, and it's an interminable bodice-ripper set during the French Revolution about a luckless woman, Richilde, whose chateau is burned down, her family is killed by an evil sans-culotte mob, and she is then raped by her uncle. She eventually becomes involved with a very young Napoleon-- and in this story his first fiancee Désirée Clary does not exist-- and she alternately chases after and runs away from him.
Napoleon's characterization in this book is very strange. He's portrayed as a dom "with tigerish intensity" who later develops erectile dysfunction, and the heroine is allegedly in love with him, to the extent that Napoleon is willing to put aside his second wife Marie Louise for her. When I say he's a "dom" I mean that literally-- he has Richilde whipped, and then he has sex with her, she is VERY turned on by this. There's even a bit where Fouche threatens to torture her by dripping candle wax on her nipples, and it looks like it's very close to turning into a kinky threesome, but-- no. Before this turns into Fifty Shades of Bonaparte, all kink-related plot threads are dropped, and Richilde just bops around the world, sleeping with various dudes, like a Regency era version of Debbie Does Dallas. Byron goes down on her, she's groped by the future Prince Regent, and she even gets involved with this random Spanish brigand named El Toro.
Her true love ends up being this milquetoast British aristocrat named Arthur, who is the most underwhelming character. In the end she runs away from Napoleon after having sex with him again, but her son blows her off and dies fighting for the French at Waterloo, and Richilde just... shrugs. She's an English lady now. The End.
This book baffles me. Is this a historical romance or an adventure? The characters are very thin, the adventure is not very exciting, and the sex is dull. The romance is non-existent. The historical detail is not great (Theresa Tallien is inexplicably called "Jeanne"). The depiction of Napoleon as an infertile, cruel, domineering bully who is also borderline impotent is VERY typical of right-wing British historians of the 1970s, '80s and '90s (ex. "Napoleon's Children" or "Napoleon: His Wives and Women") and this is just more of the same. But I don't understand why the author would write a nearly 200k word novel about a woman supposedly in love with a man he, the author, clearly hates. Richilde constantly says she's in love with Napoleon, but her internal dialogue doesn't support this. Their relationship is just lots of exposition interspersed with poorly written sex scenes. She doesn't seem to even like him.
Anyway, yes. This book is confusing and not good. If you're interested in a lot of sex with a BDSM angle, read Anne Rice's "The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty", and if you'd like a good romantic novel about Napoleon, read "Desiree" by Annemarie Selinko instead. Give "The Queen of Paris" a pass.
It's 165,000 words long, and it's an interminable bodice-ripper set during the French Revolution about a luckless woman, Richilde, whose chateau is burned down, her family is killed by an evil sans-culotte mob, and she is then raped by her uncle. She eventually becomes involved with a very young Napoleon-- and in this story his first fiancee Désirée Clary does not exist-- and she alternately chases after and runs away from him.
Napoleon's characterization in this book is very strange. He's portrayed as a dom "with tigerish intensity" who later develops erectile dysfunction, and the heroine is allegedly in love with him, to the extent that Napoleon is willing to put aside his second wife Marie Louise for her. When I say he's a "dom" I mean that literally-- he has Richilde whipped, and then he has sex with her, she is VERY turned on by this. There's even a bit where Fouche threatens to torture her by dripping candle wax on her nipples, and it looks like it's very close to turning into a kinky threesome, but-- no. Before this turns into Fifty Shades of Bonaparte, all kink-related plot threads are dropped, and Richilde just bops around the world, sleeping with various dudes, like a Regency era version of Debbie Does Dallas. Byron goes down on her, she's groped by the future Prince Regent, and she even gets involved with this random Spanish brigand named El Toro.
Her true love ends up being this milquetoast British aristocrat named Arthur, who is the most underwhelming character. In the end she runs away from Napoleon after having sex with him again, but her son blows her off and dies fighting for the French at Waterloo, and Richilde just... shrugs. She's an English lady now. The End.
This book baffles me. Is this a historical romance or an adventure? The characters are very thin, the adventure is not very exciting, and the sex is dull. The romance is non-existent. The historical detail is not great (Theresa Tallien is inexplicably called "Jeanne"). The depiction of Napoleon as an infertile, cruel, domineering bully who is also borderline impotent is VERY typical of right-wing British historians of the 1970s, '80s and '90s (ex. "Napoleon's Children" or "Napoleon: His Wives and Women") and this is just more of the same. But I don't understand why the author would write a nearly 200k word novel about a woman supposedly in love with a man he, the author, clearly hates. Richilde constantly says she's in love with Napoleon, but her internal dialogue doesn't support this. Their relationship is just lots of exposition interspersed with poorly written sex scenes. She doesn't seem to even like him.
Anyway, yes. This book is confusing and not good. If you're interested in a lot of sex with a BDSM angle, read Anne Rice's "The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty", and if you'd like a good romantic novel about Napoleon, read "Desiree" by Annemarie Selinko instead. Give "The Queen of Paris" a pass.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews