Thematically exciting, stylistically off-putting
An exciting topic, setting and blurb enticed me to pick up this book from my local library. Unfortunately, the style is not something I enjoy reading for more than two pages, so this was an entertainment never to be. Information about characters is revealed in a constant "tell, don't show" way and any direct speech is rendered like an unappealingly overwrought novel about Bismarck while the (historically correct) information about the time period is correct, but also conveyed by the authors like they are teachers wagging their finger at you. (Since they are, respectively, a professor of history and an archivist, that might be what they were trying to do.)
In general, I prefer to understand what a book means without being spoon-fed facts about characters and the plot like I'm a little baby who doesn't understand the concept of travelling by horse, or the history of "court dwarfs." There are certainly people who will enjoy this book a lot and I hope they have fun reading it, but I am not one of them.