While this book may be a challenging read for those not used to academic history, it's well worth the effort.

Johanna/Giovanna I of Naples is a queen with no name recognition in the anglosphere. A descendant of the French Angevins who ruled Provence and southern Italy in the Middle Ages, she inherited the throne from her grandfather and would struggle against gendered expectations for the rest of her life. And rather than acting like a modern heroine in a historical novel, she made use of these expectations and tropes when she could in a fascinating version of medieval PR. Still, due to her pivotal role in the Western Schism (don't worry, I also had only the vaguest memory of what this was from high school, too) as well as the brutal murder of her first husband, she went down in Italian history as a voracious, nymphomaniac "she-wolf".

Casteen examines the primary sources and Johanna's lived context in order to reveal the truth behind the myth, and present a clear and coherent explanation of how sexism worked for and against medieval queens.