I was especially interested in the story because we visited the Chatwick House, the Cavendish summer estate, in May. That was the first time I heard about Georgiana, so when my sister told me she had just read this book and passed it on to me, I was eager to find out more about her. I found the book interesting, but not riveting.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was probably the best-known woman in England in her day. She lived a life of privilege and influence, yet of sadness, dissipation, and was part of a dysfunctional family. She seemed to live a life of contradictions. Georgiana was beautiful and influenced fashion. What she wore one day was en mode the next. Yet her husband paid little attention to her and seemed unimpressed with her beauty. She influenced Whig politics, knew the Prince of Wales and the Prime Ministers of England personally, campaigned publicly, and was a true politician, yet lived in a day when she could not vote. She was wealthy, yet gambled it away. She had friends, yet "borrowed" from them to pay back gambling debts; but instead of paying back debts, she simply gambled more. Georgiana was insecure in her friendships resulting in her deepest friendship being with Lady Bess who moved in with the Cavendishes and had an affair and two children with Georgiana's husband. It is not clear, but the two women may have also had a lesbian relationship. Georgiana claimed to be religious, yet she had several affairs herself and an illegitimate daughter as a result. She was a writer, but never published under her own name. She was a supporter of the arts and influential in all of society.

The book is impressively researched and includes 42 pages of bibliography. However, I found the book to be a bit slow. It spends a lot of time explaining and expounding on the politics of the day. If you just want to know about an important historical figure and if you love history, especially that of the time period of the late 1700's/early 1800's, you would probably enjoy this book. If you just want the story of a historical figure without lots of details, this book would bore you silly.

Also, being American and not British, all the different names and titles can become very confusing. Georgiana herself, for example, has her maiden name, Spencer, and her married name, Cavendish. But her title is the Duchess of Devonshire, even though the family estate is nowhere near the area of Devonshire. (The explanation of that is an entirely different story.)