Margaret of Austria

Governor of the Netherlands and Early 16th-Century Europe's Greatest Diplomat

De: Rozsa Gaston

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

For fans of ALISON WEIR and PHILIPPA GREGORY

◆ FIRST PLACE WINNER - 2023 CHAUCER Book Awards - Early Historical Fiction

◆ WINNER - 2023 READERS' FAVORITE Awards - Fiction-Historical-Personage

◆ Royalty ◆ Power ◆ Politics ◆ Love ◆ Struggle

Bestselling biographer and historian Sarah Gristwood, author of Game of Queens and The Tudors in Love, calls this tale of early 16th-century Europe's most brilliant power broker “Compelling and wholly convincing—at once a vividly readable novel and a long-overdue presentation of Europe's unsung heroine to the broad audience she deserves.”

Margaret of Austria was the most significant political negotiator of early 16th-century Europe. About as Austrian as French fries are French, she was born in Brussels in 1480, raised in France, married and widowed in Spain, then married and widowed again in Savoy by age twenty-four.

In 1506 Margaret’s life turned upside down when her brother Philip of Burgundy unexpectedly died in Spain. With their mother Juana of Castile insane, four children, heirs to the Habsburg empire, were left behind in the Burgundian-Habsburg Netherlands.

Margaret stepped in and took the reins.

Appointed by her father, Maximilian I, Margaret became governor of the Netherlands, then widened her role to broker the 1508 Treaty of Cambrai where Europe’s princes united against Venice.

Ferdinand of Spain, Henry Tudor then Henry VIII of England, Louis XII of France, and Louise of Savoy for Francis I all came to Margaret’s negotiation table. Under her deft diplomacy princes saw reason and wars were averted.

Enjoying political power, Margaret avoided remarriage. Then Henry VIII's right-hand man Charles Brandon turned her world upside down.

Margaret's court attracted Europe's brightest, including the young Anne Boleyn. Yet halfway through her rule Margaret was ousted by enemies. She won back her position with a comeback strategy as astute today as it was in 1517.

Click the READ NOW button to journey to the Renaissance with Margaret of Austria, who shot the fortunes of the House of Habsburg to the stars while setting a winning precedent for female rule in the Netherlands.

AI Voice Takes Some Getting Used To

Once someone gets used to the AI, it does get easier. However, even poorly acted is superior to the A1. The most difficult sections are the dialog becuase there is NO difference between once figure and another. The voice is exactly the same for Margaret, her father, her husband, or attendants. It weirdly showed the least during the Charles Brandon sections.

The very flat nature of the AI voice makes the motives seem confusing as well. I had trouble understanding why Margaret would ask for so much advice from others. I pictured her as more confident. If it is verified that she depended on advice that would have helped me. I don't know if this is an AI issue so that an actor could have sold this or the story, but I think it was a problem with the AI not being able to sell motivation. I'll listen to AI for free audiobooks if I am highly interested in the topic as I was with this, but I would hesitate to buy AI voice because it is just awful for dialog.

Fills in some gaps but better if you already know the characters

Like other reviewers, I have to admit I was put off by the AI narrator. It is not robotic but the intonation and especially the comical habit of reading the copyright dates and page numbers on the illustration (which we can’t see) is distracting.
Otherwise the book fills in some interesting gaps in what I already knew about 16th Century European politics. If you didn’t already have a pretty good knowledge of the players, though, I think this book would be a confusing starting point.

Hard to listen

The cadence of the virtual voice is impossible to listen to, I could not follow the story because the vv is so distracting.