My first encounter with this author was reading her novel, Hamnet. In my opinion, The Marriage Portrait is even better.

O’Farrell was inspired by the real life story of fifteen-year-old Lucrezia di Cosimo de’Medici who, in 1560 married the Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso II d’Este. A year later Lucrezia died officially from a ‘putrid fever’. However, rumours circulated that she was indeed murdered by her husband.

And so O’Farrell begins her story on the day when Lucrezia’s realizes she is in danger. O’Farrell then weaves the story back and forth between that day and through Lucrezia’s life. We learn about her childhood as the middle child of a large and powerful noble family, her betrothal and eventual marriage.

We are immediately transported into Lucrezia’s life, inhabiting her thoughts, observations, and intelligence. She has great talents and had she been a male would likely have made a great ruler. But alas, the bindings of being a woman mean that she is cast into a role she does not want, that of a wife and breeder of children. And that of course is in keeping with the time and for years since. In our present day it nevertheless is galling as we cheer on her struggles for recognition and rights.

The structure of the story is clever as the two timelines converge towards a tense crescendo so much so that you cannot put it down.

There is a lot of description and sometimes I find in some stories that it can serve to slow the story down. Not the case for The Marriage Portrait as each detail puts us in Lucrezia’s point of view understanding her surroundings and her acute observations of people which serves to paint a complete picture of her world.

It is a masterpiece of writing, the characters so detailed that we know and fear for them.

This is definitely one to read. Don’t miss out.