Sonja’s Pick
May 2024
Accidental Empress
Allison Pataki
Howard Books, October 13, 2015
It is 1853. The Hapsburgs are Europe’s most powerful ruling family and their 23-year-old Emperor is looking to marry. His mother sets up a meeting with her niece Helene who travels to see him with her sister, 15-year-old Elisabeth, and their mother. Franz Josef is smitten with Elisabeth and not Helene and she with him. The next year they marry.
Elisabeth is completely unprepared for the life she must ease into. Franz Josef is too busy to see her and after producing two children she is not even allowed to be with them. She is distraught. We are brought into her bedroom and into state rooms feeling their closeness yet estrangement. We want her to stand up to them all, but alas it is the 19th century.
Sisi, as she is fondly called, becomes the most beloved of all Hapsburg Queens. They reside briefly in many of their castles but she falls in love with Hungary, especially Budapest, staying there as much as she can.
Elisabeth is absolutely beautiful with hair down to the floor; hair which the maids spend hours enhancing. Love affairs trickle through the story. It’s an exciting read with a tinge of politics thrown in too. She’s a spirited young thing and we watch her mature and find her place.