Book Review: Isabella: The Warrior Queen

Title: Isabella: The Warrior Queen

Author: Kirstin Downey

Rating: ☕ ☕ ☕ ☕ ☕ (5)

If you were to ask anyone who Queen Isabella of Spain was, most people would tell you that she was the monarch who bankrolled Christopher Columbus’s expedition across the Atlantic. Some might even remember that she was the Queen during the rise of the infamous Spanish Inquisition <insert obligatory Monty Python joke>. And, while these are important, they are only a fraction of the history changing events that occurred during the life and reign of one of the most famous (and infamous) rulers in Christendom.

Although I am a history major, Spain is a region I know very little about. Little by little, I’m learning about the colorful, and at times tumultuous, history of what was once the most powerful country in the Western world. I was pretty excited to have the opportunity to read this book because many of the biographies I've seen about Isabella were either written for children and/or they were a joint biography with her husband Ferdinand. And Kirstin Downey certainly filled that void.

The story of the rise of Isabella of Castile and Leon didn't begin with her marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon. It didn't begin with the death of her father King Juan II or the death of her older brother King Enrique. It began nearly 750 years before her birth when the Moors left Africa and invaded the Iberian Peninsula. Downey gives the reader a much-needed primer on the wars between the Moors and the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula. It is this and many other instances where the author puts the actions of Isabella into a greater historical context. She does an excellent job giving us the details but also giving the reader a look at the bigger picture. 

Downey takes great care to show us that Isabella was a real person; she wasn’t a saint but also had flaws like anyone else. Although she was a powerful monarch, she wasn’t infallible. She accomplished amazing things during her reign but she was also responsible for some terrible things. The author is careful to rely on facts and not, unlike many biographies, speculate about the feelings and motivations of Isabella and the people around her.

Isabella was a thoroughly researched and fascinating read. I enjoy biographies and I really love it when an author manages to give the subject back their humanity and remind us that these were real people and not characters in a fairy tale — and Kirstin Downey does just that. Even though I have the digital copy, I am definitely going to go out and buy the hard copy of Isabella: The Warrior Queen to put on my biography shelves at home next to the biographies of her daughter Catherine of Aragon.

**Yes I do have a separate section on my shelves for biographies. No, I do not sort them alphabetically by person. I sort them by time period, country, and then person. It’s my system and it works for me.**

**NetGalley provided me with an advance reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.**