Review: The Birth of Venus - Sarah Dunant

Overall I give 3.5 stars. The story blended historical fact very well with the fictional story of the main character. It gave enough detail but not so much that it was like reading non-fiction. The writer did an excellent job of inserting the MC and her family into the events of the time period that at times I was convinced she was a real person and tried to Google her. One word to describe how I felt reading this: driven. I had to know the end of the mystery and if I had to read the whole book to do it, then so be it. This was not a mystery/thriller novel but rather there were questions that needed answers and not the whodunit kind either.
A couple of things I didn't care for:
-use of some modern profanities. A cursory search on the etymology found that the words were not used in that time period in the context that the author uses them. Because it seems out of place, it pulls the reader out of the story.
-the random murders that occur just seemed unnecessary and didn't really move the plot forward, IMHO of course. I think the same end result could be achieved without them.
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I think I enjoyed it enough that I would like to read other books by this author.