Two Empresses is a story about Josephine Bonaparte and her cousin, Aimee du Buc Rivery. It starts out when they are both teenagers, waiting for the day where they will be married and really start their lives. However, what happens to both of them is not what they expected as their lives go through unforseen highs and lows.
This story was pretty decent. It was a different set of characters for me as I’d never read a story that Josephine Boneparte was in nor have I read anything like the trials her cousin was in. There were some things I felt were a bit tedious but the story was a solid 3.5. I recommend.
**I voluntarily read and reviewed this book

I have read all but one, her first, of Brandy Purdy's books. I am amazed at each one about the depth of the research that she puts into each book. With Two Empresses we learn the little-known story, at least to me, of two women and their remarkable lives.

Marie Josephe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie and Aimée du Buc de Rivéry are cousins and they live on the island of Martinique. The story opens with the girls getting up in the night to go see Euphemia David to have their fortunes told. What they learn is that they each will be a queen someday. Rose is desperate to get off the island and find her 'king'. Her wishes come true and she is sent to Paris to marry Alexandre de Beauharnais. Things don't turn out as she had hoped and after the birth of their two children, they are separated by court order. Her husband is soon imprisoned as is she during the Reign of Terror. She is released from prison after Alexandre is executed and lives the best she can, becoming mistress to various men. She later meets Napolean Bonaparte and the rest is history.

Aimee on the other hand, after Rose left to go to Paris, she was sent to a French convent but her ship was, according to legend, captured by Barbary pirates, sold as a harem concubine, and was the same person as Nakşîdil Sultan, a Valide Sultan (Queen Mother) of the Ottoman Empire. She was thrust into a world totally unknown to her and the life in a harem certainly was not what she would have liked. But adapt she did and became a favorite of the Sultan.

Whenever I read a novel by Brandy Purdy, I find myself totally immersed in the story and characters. Vivid descriptions of the era and even descriptions of clothing and decorations are told in such a way that you think that you are right in the story. That is what I love about historical fiction, is that the reader can be transported right into any story that Ms. Purdy tells. A consummate storyteller and attention to detail make reading the stories worthwhile.

This is a truly well written historical novel. A book that describes two young cousins growing up on Martinique as inseparable and then individually details the stories of each of the girls, their locations and the characters that surround them., so well. Throughout the book the sounds and smells are so intense that they are real. Rose goes to Paris, entertains many men, she lives through the Revolution and later Napoleon is attracted to her beauty. The story continues with Rose, who Napoleon renamed Josephine, and the life she then led as the Empress. On the other side is the story of Aimee whose life contrasts so much with her cousin’s. She also goes to Paris and receives a convent education but on returning to Martinique her life suddenly changes. She is taken and sold to the Sultan of Turkey and her life changes radically.
I loved this book and would highly recommend it to anyone who likes Historical based novels. I had not heard about Aimee, renamed Nakshidil by the Sultan, and so had to go researching. It appears that their has been many theories over whether Nakshidil was Aimee or just a myth. All of which has been interesting reading as a follow up.

Two Empresses is my new favorite by Brandy Purdy. I loved reading how she envisioned these two extraordinary women, Josephine and Aimee. Quite fascinating!
Highly recommended
5 plus stars.

This is not the first book by Brandy Purdy that I have read during my blogging career, but it will certainly be the last. The narrative is short on detail, long on repetition, and the technical aspects of the story don't hold up. Josephine de Beauharnais was a fascinating and unpredictable woman who enchanted a global tyrant, but there's little charisma or interest for this fictional version of her. Two Empresses is above all a rote, lifeless rendition of her life; it holds little entertainment and less satisfaction.

One-dimensional, limp characterization is only one of the several problems that plague the pages of Brandy Purdy's latest novel. Josephine's story is paired with that of Rose, an original character, who boasts a plot that feels disjointed from the main one and which never engages the audience. Rose's inclusion to the story is unnecessary, cliched, and underdeveloped. With little emotional investment in either the made-up character or this version of the historical figures of Josephine, Napoleon, etc., Two Empresses was an unsatisfying, unbelievable story.

An excellent historical novel that follows Empress Josephine and her cousin Aimee who becomes a member of the Sultan of Turkey's harem. It was interesting to the contrast between 18th century Turkey and France and how the women navigate their lives.

Thanks Kensington Books and netgalley for this ARC.

Blew me away! I loved it so much. These two cousins led extraordinary lives and you won't want to choose your favorite because they are so different. I didn't want this novel to end

I found this book to be extremely overly sexual, and extraordinarly depressing. I am sure a lot of things of Josephine are well documented, however, Aimee's is obviously a figment of the Authors dark imagination! I don't recommend this book.

This book was a strange conflation of two lives, one which seemed to be a string of historical events with weak characterization, and the other which seemed to be almost entirely fictional but with an interesting plot line.

The story begins with Rose and Aimee, cousins and members of the French aristocracy on the island of Martinique. Rose is wild, passionate, willing to take risks. Aimee is measured, practical. They encounter a Voodoo queen who promises that they will each become empresses, but that Rose will be filled with sorrow while Aimee will have joy in what comes after her. Fast forward a dozen or more years through Rose's tumultuous marriage, two children born, the horrific French Revolution, a score of lovers, until she finally--incredibly reluctantly--marries Napoleon Bonaparte and is renamed as Josephine. Meanwhile, Aimee, after receiving her education at a convent in France, takes ship back to Martinique only to be captured by Barbary Pirates and sold to the Turkish sultan where she becomes the favored concubine in his harem.

Both of the women's narratives were told in first person and since they covered many years of history, more time was spent in getting the events down on paper than in fleshing out secondary characters. In Rose/Josephine's story, there was little to like about her. She was selfish, vapid, and ready to sleep with anyone who asked her. The other characters in her life didn't receive much fleshing out, and it felt like a string of one historical event after another combined with a Josephine-pity-party. When she finally decided she loved Napoleon, there was no reason given, other than her own survival, and the about-face was, frankly, confusing.

Aimee's story was more intriguing. She showed resourcefulness in navigating the treacherous waters of the harem as she becomes Sultana Naksidil and defends her adoptive son Mahmoud against plots. The main difficulty with the Aimee plot line is that scholars have fairly definitively proven that the intriguing Sultan Naksidil was of Georgian descent, not French. Which means that the Aimee legend is just a legend, and of a totally different level of historicity than Josephine's life.

I did appreciate how the French history regarding Napoleon finally "tied together" in the epilogue as we learn how Turkey decides to act in the altercation between France and Russia. But in other respects, this novel was a strange mixture of oil and water with two empresses that might have been better served if dealt with separately.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.