I’m finding The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell quite a difficult one to write about, but I really enjoyed it, which is the main thing. I always enjoy her books,  despite or maybe because they are all different.

At the beginning of the book we’re told in an historical note that Lucrezia di Cosimo de Medici had died within less than a year of her marriage, but the time slips all over the place so you have to pay attention to the date at the beginning of each chapter. The time wanders from 1544 just before Lucrezia’s birth to 1561.

Lucrezia is the fifth child of a Grand Duke and is regarded as strange, she’s always being compared with her older sister Maria who is the parents’ favourite and has been set up to marry a powerful Duke. When Maria dies suddenly Lucrezia is put forward as the replacement bride, it’s a political alliance so it doesn’t really matter who  Alfonso marries, as long as it’s into that family.

As Lucrezia isn’t even 13 her nurse decides to conspire with Lucrezia to keep her unmarried as long as possible, hiding from everyone that she has hit puberty, as that’s  the time when there can be no more excuses to delay her marriage. An unfortunate leak leads to celebrations and the marriage is quickly planned and in no time Lucrezia has left her family and moved to her husband’s estates. She’s expected to get pregnant fast and  Alfonso  arranges to have her portrait painted, it is after all a time when women often died in childbirth, but ominously Alfonso describes Lucrezia as being his first duchess!

This is a good read, but it isn’t my favourite by Maggie O’Farrell. You can read Jack’s much more detailed review of the book here.