DARK ANGELS by Karleen Koen, 2006.

Set in the seventeenth century courts of King Charles II and Louis XIV, the story concerns Alice Verney, a determined and controlling Restoration lovely who wants to make a successful marriage. The attractive and spoiled Alice tends to manipulate everyone around her: her father, Sir Thomas, her friends Barbara Bragge and Gracen Howard, even Queen Catherine. When she doesn't get her own way, she sulks or completely writes you off. Stubborn, foolish, scheming, and shallow is pretty much how Alice comes across in Koen's huge novel. Will she or won't she marry the much older Duke of Balmoral? is the question running through the book. Or will she become sensible and marry the fellow she's truly in love with, Captain Richard Saylor, who thinks he's actually in love with King Charles' French mistress until he comes to the shocking realization that it's Alice he really wants? Will poor Catherine of Braganza be poisoned--or worse--divorced for her lack a child by the king? Will the evil poisoner who murdered the king's precious sister Henriette of France strike again? Does the reader care?  Court intrigue, manipulations, poisonings, pregnancies, brothels, infidelity, fabulous wealth, terrible poverty, love, loyalty, treachery and betrayal, maliciousness, secret romances, and so many characters that one tires of it. I really wanted to like this book, as I'm a huge fan of the Stuarts and their times. However, I found most of the characters unsympathetic and shallow or cartoonishly drawn, couldn't really get involved with any of them. I found the whole thing bloated, overblown, and uninvolving, and yet I kept reading because I hoped it would get better. I ended up being disappointed that I had wasted so much time on this. Maybe if I'd read her earlier books first, it would have made a difference. But as this is considered a prequel to those, it should stand alone, and yet there were times when I felt there were things I was missing because I hadn't read Koen's other novels. Not something I'd recommend, or maybe I would for those who like those long romantic sagas that are essentially costume pieces with myriad characters and very little depth.