Having read a brief biography about Beatrice Cenci I decided to read this fictional portrayal of her short and tragic life. She and her siblings were fathered by Count Cenci, who had no love for his children, except for when Beatrice reached her teens, when he developed incestuous feelings towards her.

Whether or not Beatrice Cenci played a part in her father’s murder, owing to his perverted desires towards her, she and three other family members took the blame, were horrifically tortured to confess their crime, and she and two of the other three were ultimately beheaded, such was the horrific justice system of sixteenth-century Italy.

Clearly there is potential for writing a fictional account of Beatrice Cenci’s life, however, the author of this work failed to deliver a creditable account of this unfortunate family. For the most part this two-volume set is filled with endless waffle, pointless digressions, too many metaphors, unnatural-sounding melodramatic dialogue, needless repetition, scenes that do nothing to move the story along, and there’s an irritating amount of comparing situations/people with past historical events/figures.

I confess to skipping lots of this book because of the reasons mentioned above. My only reason for not giving up was owing to me wanting to learn new info that wasn’t presented by the author of the Beatrice Cenci bio I once read. I did learn a little though probably nothing that isn’t readily available online somewhere.

On the plus side, the author does succeed in making the reader empathise for Beatrice, as her whole life was ruined by her monstrous father, and ended by judges who would be better described as Satan’s warriors.

The poor girl was just 16 when her tormented life was taken from her in 1599. Barbaric times.

I recommend people read about Beatrice, either a fictional account or a bio, but would also advise to not choose this account of her life. ( )