The Poisoned Crown

The Accursed Kings, Book 3

By: Maurice Druon

Narrated by: Peter Joyce

“This is the original Game of Thrones.” George R.R. Martin.

The puny, self-impotent Louis X, having caused his first wife to be murdered and his mistress exiled, becomes besotted with the lovely Clemence, his new Queen. Vacillating between self-pity and vainglory he is caught between the vaulting ambitions of proud, profligate barons…

©1956 Maurice Druon (P)2013 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

‘Iron kings and strangled queens, battles and betrayals, lies and lust, the curse of the Templars, the doom of a great dynasty – and all of it (well, most of it) straight from the pages of history, and believe me, the Starks and the Lannisters have nothing on the Capets and Plantagenets. Whether you are a history buff or a fantasy fan, Druon's epic will keep you turning pages. This was the original game of thrones’
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN

‘Blood-curdling tale of intrigue, murder, corruption and sexual passion’
SUNDAY TIMES

‘Barbaric, sensual, teeming with life, based in wide reading and sound scholarship…among the best historical novels’ TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

Carry On, You Wayward Son.

As with The Strangled Queen, the measure of how much you'll like this book is how much you liked the first book. The writing is still good, the acting is still good, Louis still sucks...

Really, he manages to be both bloodthirsty and a cream puff, impulsive and a ditherer. Peter Joyce does a really good job with this spluttering rant he gives at one point in the book. To his credit he gets a little better throughout the book, mostly due to Clemence of Hungary AKA one of the few actual nice people in France.

Favorite nugget of cynical wisdom: "It is one of the advantages of mediocrity that people frequently decide unanimously upon your name."

This is an excellent series.

Highly recommend this entire series. Very well written and superbly performed. Truely the initial game of thrones.

Lots of Characters to Despise and Few to Like

But that's history I guess. That this is non-fictional detracts nothing from the intriguing and highly entertaining stories that intertwine throughout the 6 book narrative. Narrator excellent. Highly recommended.

Fascinating History of the French Kings of 1300s

The narrator has perfect pitch for the era and the story. He manages to give NUMEROUS characters distinct voices. Truth is often stranger than fiction and this series is a perfect example.

I really enjoy this series

I am obsessed with Tudor/ War of The Roses history, but I never knew France had so much shinagnz too until I started these books. I'm less familiar with this part of French History as am with England but from what I have looked up some of these events did happen. I'm currently on The Poisoned Crown. I'm really enjoying it, particularly the uncle/nephew banker relationship. IN the first book you get the impression that his uncle is just using him for business ends, but suddenly here in the third book he is helping his nephew follow his heart, and also giving him some sense to not completely think with his penis. I having been mostly raised by an uncle and in my adult life him being my roommate, well it has always made me a sucker for those relationships.
Also I have no idea how historically accurate the part about the french queen having a friend ship with the Kings former mistress is, and I 100% know this is judged with the eye of someone living in 2019, but it always bugs in Feudal systym type stories, the nobel women NEVER want the bastards around. There are maybe 2 exceptions I can think of in books (I think they were by Phillepa Greggory) but the bastards were just serving the main family for the most part, but still a step up. But this queen, out of charity of her heart, wanted to see the child and saw no reason why she shouldn't be around. It doesn't seem like that will be possible because of how the king is but god it was refreshing and it seems like they will have a good friendship.
The way these are written also quite whitty and I enjoy the omniscient sort of point of view.

If you like game of thrones…

If you are a fan of George rr Martin, this series of books will be right up your alley