Catherine de' Medici, The Flying Sqadron is an amazing introduction to the story of a real historical figure. It illuminates the religious wars happening in France in the late 16th century through the main character Gabrielle. She starts out as a rather naive girl, but once she joins the royal court finds out that this isn't the fairytale life she had imagined. The art is beautiful yet simplistic and doesn't distract from the enticing story. The graphic novel ends rather abruptly. I would have loved to see how the story continues. I will definitely have an eye out for Vol. 2 when it is released.

"Catherine de 'Medici, The Flying Squadron" is a graphic novel following a young fictional girl who joins the Queen's ladies and it is mostly based on French History. I wish I could say I loved this book more than I did because the art style was lovely and I think it had a lot of potential. However, I was just bored throughout the whole book. There was a lot of jumping between different story lines that made it very confusing to follow and I did not feel attached to our main character because she was only ever in half the scenes.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this e-arc of "Catherine de 'Medici, The Flying Squadron".

Thanks to NetGalley and Europe Comics for the ARC!

Catherine De' Medici, The Flying Squadron is a graphic novels about a fictional teenage girl, who soon joins the Queen Mother's entourage at the behest of her godmother, as she is exposed to the great horrors of battle and betrayal that come with being in royalty's inner circle and learns how, despite the glamour, there is still little agency for a young woman in a world like that.

The artistry in the backgrounds and costume designs is incredibly detailed and lovingly executed, but such attention is not paid to the characters populating the novella. The character designs come off bland and same-face'd for a majority of the characters which made it hard to determine who was who during moments of tension in the story.

The story itself was a little dry compared to Starz' The Serpent Queen but such is the differences between the mediums and the content, I think.

I think that lovers of history and YA fiction would find this appealing.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me the chance to explore this graphic novel. Regrettably, my streak of uninspiring graphic novels persists, with this one falling flat as well. The artwork holds its own charm, yet the storyline lacks the engaging punch I sought. The medieval royal ambiance failed to resonate, leaving me disconnected. On a brighter note, I found unexpected delight in another read. While I'm not a connoisseur of French history, this graphic novel artfully weaved a fictional character into the tapestry of truth. The seamless flow and appealing visuals truly narrated the story. This series opener has kindled my interest to venture forth. Two thumbs up!

The drawings were really sweet and easy on the eyes. Not bold, as well as the color palette. The story was beautifully told, the dialogues were nicely placed. Loved every page, hoping for the sequel..

Sadly, this one sounded super awesome and right up my alley, but I was just bored for most of the time, almost felt like I had to keep on looking up things as there was a lot of names, most I didn't know. I agree with others, it feels like someone crammed a historical non-fiction book with a fiction book and made it graphic novel. The art was great and I love that the style fits with the era the story takes place in. But the rest just didn't work for me.
But thank you to the publisher for letting me try this book!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read this graphic novel automatically.

Unfortunately I didn’t seem to have any luck with reading decent graphic novels at this time and this was one of them. The art is nice but the storyline is just bland and boring like I just didn’t get the medieval royal feel to it..

Personally, I didn’t enjoy this novel that much as I struggled to connect with the plot and characters. However, the illustrations are pretty and I like the idea of mixing fiction and non-fiction, the idea of the plot was an interesting idea. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read this.

I wasn’t a fan of this story, I felt it was a bit confusing. But the drawing style and colors were really pretty.

I liked this graphic novel a lot. It pictures the life of the French Court under the reign of Catherine de' Medici during the "guerres de Religions". The story is set in the 16th century and is told by Gabrielle who's sent to French Court and becomes a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. At the same time the tensions between the Huguenots and the Catholics reach their "peak". And Gabrielle as a potential spy is in the middle of all that.

This was really good - and unexpected. I am not well versed in French history so I don't know the true story but I enjoyed the way this has been constructed with a fictional character at the heart of a true story.
The graphics were good and the flow was really good - a graphic novel that really told a story. I really appreciated that. This is just the first in a series and I have to admit I am keen to read on.
Thanks to Netgalley and Europa Comics for the ARC.

I picked this graphic novel expecting some capers of lady spies in the French court circa the Thirty Year War, but this isn't exactly light-hearted capers. <i>Catherine de' Medici, The Flying Squadron</i> reads like someone tried to condense at least a quarter of a chewy historical romance into a hundred pages of a comic book. Names, places, political allusions: they are produced in detail and with solidity that shows a genuine historic interest. There is clearly a lot of interest in examining Catherine de Medici's role in the events, and bring in a lot of perspective on women in policymaking at the time. In contrast to that, the fictional elements -- the heroine, her childhood friend, and her relationships -- seem almost coincidental, almost an afterthought, which is a bit anticlimactic. Maybe this gets developed in future volumes, but as of this volume alone, it's a rather long set-up without much payback in terms of investment in what's happening with the protagonist.

Thanks to Netgalley and Europa Comics for the ARC.