The Princess of Nowhere

Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon's sister, was once hailed as the most beautiful woman in all of Europe. Married to the Italian Prince Camillo Borghese, a union as much of passion as of state, Pauline drove the jealous Camillo wild, and away for most of their marriage, with her infidelities and indiscretions. Their stormy love affair is seen through the eyes of Sophie, Pauline's surrogate daughter. Pauline and Camillo's tempestuous coupling is all the more interesting for its basis in fact, offering a thrilling romance with a Napoleonic backdrop. Borghese's first novel, writing about his ancestors, is a labor of love, and he resists the genre convention that passion leads to a lasting happy marriage. Pauline is a spitfire of a heroine—flawed, petulant, extremely unlikable, and mesmerizing. Throughout, the most compelling evolution is Sophie's as she, like the reader, moves from being enamored with Pauline to disenchanted, but incapable of leaving her. (Dec.)