My first experience with Carolyn Meyer was this book, I believe. Isabel's book is the third in the Royal Diaries series, following Elizabeth and Cleopatra. Meyer also wrote about Anastasia, who has the fifth book. I know I got into RD when a lot of these were released already. I think the first I remember waiting for was Lady of Ch'iao Kuo. So I suppose I could have read Anastasia first, but I think it was Isabel. Meyer's only other contribution to the series was Kristina of Sweden and she never wrote for Dear America, although she has several other young adult historical fiction novels that are similar to RD, but also more adult. I remember being dead bored by the ones that took the characters further into adulthood. Apparently, I am not interested in Marie Antoinette or Mary Queen of Scots enough to read about them as adults.
Anyway. Isabel is known best for two things: Columbus and the Inquisition. Yay, mass death on both parts. Sigh. While I enjoy the book, it's hard to read sometimes, because the bad she did weighs in the back of my mind while I'm reading about her worrying about her future husband. That is probably 50% of the book. She has an uncertain future and this brother is king, no, now this brother is king. Yadda yadda. Like others I've reviewed, she has a good voice, but this is another that fails to really dig into the background characters. Beatriz is the only one that's really interesting and she's actually rather problematic, because she's way more interesting than Isabel!
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