Everyone likes a rags-to-riches story. Dreams of Better Days. Cinderella, marrying her Prince from the kitchen soot.

Désirée, the historical novel by Annemarie Selinko, is about just such a story. Désirée Clary, daughter of a Republican French silk merchant, rises to become Queen of Sweden.

For Désirée, however, the idea of living in a palace, something she experiences when she accompanies her sister Julie, married to Joseph Bonaparte, to Italy, as the Ambassador’s wife, is not something which she particularly wants. She does not like palace-life and the constant entertaining (nor, to be fair, does her sister much). When she marries, she makes her intended promise not to make her live in a palace.

She does not expect to, because her husband is not a Prince of any sort, but a soldier, the son of lawyer, and a devoted Republican: Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte. An able soldier, he has risen to Brigadier General by the time he meets and marries Désirée, now the jilted fiancee of Napoleon Bonaparte, who has married Josephine. Neither a Prince, nor an aspirant to such a rank. Unlike, events would show, Napoleon, who picks the crown of France “from the gutter” and has himself anointed Emperor.

The Swedes, however, have an inheritance crisis (a king with no children, and no relative on whom the Swedish aristocracy can agree), and offer to have their king adopt the now-Marshall of France.

You see, Bernadotte at one point captured some Swedish soldiers, including Baron Carl Otto Mörner, and treated them so well, and, as Selinko would have it, discussed politics so sensibly with them that it left a favourable impression. He’d also made a good hash of governing one or other of the German states which Napoleon had assigned to his governorship. Baron Mörner championed his candidacy for the Crown.

Désirée, dreaming of their little cottage from the early days of their marriage, is less keen. The palace, and all its etiquette. Not something a silk merchant’s daughter knows much about, even as the wife of a Marshall of France, or the sister of the Queen of Naples and Spain (only so because Joseph was appointed King by his brother).

I will say, my knowledge of Désirée’s story was sketchy at best, though I was aware of it before reading this novel. Whether it has been improved by the reading probably requires historical study, but I did read this within a weekend, so engrossing did I find it. Which is impressive for a Kindle-read. Normally those need to be books I’ve read in print first to keep my attention.

And I do love the very Scandinavian idea of electing the monarch in the way that they chose Bernadotte, who became Charles XIV John, and Désirée, who was known as Desideria. And how wholeheartedly Bernadotte adopts Sweden as his country and the duty he owes the Swedish people.

Verdict: will be on the lookout for a Print copy to add to my library. This was a good read.

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