I wouldn't call this book a "historical tour de force" by any means. It's somewhat shallow and has numerous little errors of fact. Frankly, you could get more detail about the lives of Marie of Rumania, Maud of Norway, Sophie of Greece, Alexandra of Russia, etc. by reading Theo Aronson's GRANDMAMA OF EUROPE: THE CROWNED DESCENDANTS OF QUEEN VICTORIA. Mr. Aronson's book covers the same women covered in Ms. Gelardi's book and you might have to go to more trouble to find a copy it, but I promise you he is the better writer and it is more solidly & expertly researched than Born to Rule.

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This book was very interesting as I didn't know much about any of these women except Tsarina Alexandra. A more comprehensive genealogical chart would have been helpful. Many siblings were mentioned with no place to look for them if you missed a passing reference earlier in the book. Also confusing was the use of more than one name for many people. She switched back and forth in the same paragraph as if she was talking about more than one person, but then I realized it was the same person. Several times I had to go back and hunt for the introduction to that person to find out if they really were the same person.

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