The inspiration for the STARZ original series, The Serpent Queen -- second season premiering July 12th! "A beautifully written portrait of a ruthless, subtle and fearless woman fighting for survival and power in a world of gangsterish brutality, routine assassination and religious mania. . . . Frieda has brought a largely forgotten heroine-villainess and a whole sumptuously vicious era back to life. . . . This is The Godfather meets Elizabeth ." --Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar Poisoner, besotted mother, despot, necromancer, engineer of a massacre: the dark legend of Catherine de Medici is centuries old. In this critically hailed biography, Leonie Frieda reclaims the story of this unjustly maligned queen of France to reveal a skilled ruler battling extraordinary political and personal odds. Based on comprehensive research including thousands of Catherine's own letters, Frieda unfurls Catherine's story from her troubled childhood in Florence to her tumultuous marriage to Henry II of France; her transformation of French culture to her reign as a queen who would use brutality to ensure her children's royal birthright. Brilliantly executed, this enthralling biography goes beyond myth to paint a very human portrait of this remarkable figure. " The Godfather meets Elizabeth ...A beautifully written portrait of a ruthless, subtle, and fearless woman fighting for survival and power." -- "Simon Sebag Montefiore, New York Times bestselling author" "Vivid and entertaining...a convincing human portrait against the backdrop of a brutal age." -- "Wall Street Journal" Leonie Frieda is the author of a bestselling biography of Catherine de Medici and The Deadly Sisterhood: A Story of Women, Power and Intrigue in the Italian Renaissance . She lives in London. Sarah Le Fevre lives in London, where she trained at the Poor School and is a practicing barrister. She divides her working life between these professions, indulges her passions for the Arsenal football club and Bikram yoga, and occasionally escapes for clean air and green fields to the West Country.