Villains!-Sue Kendall

SYNOPSIS: RASPUTIN: Grigory, Yefimovich Rasputin, born on the 10th January of 1869 in a small village in Siberia, northern Russia, was a boy that had a poor family. His brother and sister died in front of him drowned, but the incidents weren't coincidences. Rasputin surprised the townspeople when he discovered who stole his dad's horse in a meeting that a huge crowd took part. Since that day, people thought that Rasputin had powers, but he was uncomfortable with it. When he grew up he became a cart driver, got married and had three children. At the age of 33, he drove a person that changed his life. He convinced Rasputin to be very religious until he got to the point to abandon his family and live travelling like a vagabond because ''God called him''. He became very popular by reason of his special powers, beliefs and teachings, but he hadn't had a good reputation as a result of the bad relationship between him and the priests that began to argue about religion. One day, he received a visitor named Anna Vyrubova, who was a good friend of Tsarina Alexandra (Tsar's wife). She asked if he could save their child that had a disease capable of killing him. He was able to save him, and since that day he has had a very good relationship with the majesties. He moved to the palace and he became even more popular all over Russia, but a lot of people hated him and wanted to kick him out of the palace. When World War I began Tsar went to take part in the army as a result of Rasputin's advices. Then, he took the control of the palace because Tsarina trusted him completely and was influenced by his words. An important person from the parliament of Russia, Vladimir Purishkewish, made a speech in Duma about the ministers of the monarchy and the bad conditions of Russia. Felix Yusupov, another important noble, talked with him and they agreed to find a way to kill Rasputin. They poisoned him, shot him four times, hit him several times and threw him to a river finally ending with his life, drowned like his siblings. Before he died, Rasputin left a letter and the prophecy that he wrote was realised. Romanov's rule ended in a tragic way.

CATHERINE DE MEDICI: Catherine de Medici, member of Medici family, became orphan at the age of 12. Although that, she was rich because all the property and fortune of her parents belonged to her. She had a hard childhood. At first, she lived with her grandmother, with her aunt and lastly with her father's distant relative, Cardinal Giulio de Medici, in Florence. When a rebellion happened against the Medici family all her family left the palace but Catherine was forced to stay there with the rebels. At the time the rebels left, her family returned and sent her to some convents for 5 years. She became the best educated woman of her time because of it. As soon as she returned to the palace, she was forced to ride through the streets on a donkey while the angry crowd shouted terrible things and threw food and stones at her. She was sent to France to marry Henry of Orleans at the age of 14. She impressed the French court with her high-heeled shoes and Italian food, but people didn't respect her because she wasn't a royal princess. She loved her husband Henry, but he was in love with another woman and had a relationship with his mistress. Since she was smart, she perfected her talent with poisons and used them later to kill his husband's brother to have the opportunity to become queen and her husband king. Over the next 10 years, she had 10 children, but three of them died. When her husband's father died, they became king and queen but she didn't have much power since her husband's mistress had complete power over him. As soon as her husband died, her 15 years old son became King Francis II. When he died her 10 years old son, Charles, became king. There was a difficult period in French history because of the French Wars of Religions between Protestants and Catholics. She invited a leader of the Protestants to the palace and her son Charles admired him so much that he reached to the point to argue with her mother, putting their relationship in danger. She decided to began the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre to kill Coligny (the leader) and all his Protestant followers. Her men killed Coligny and over 20000 Protestants in painful ways for 2 months. As a result of it, the royal family became very unpopular when her youngest son became king after Charles died. When her youngest son died too it was clear for her that Valois family would end with the death of Henry. She died in the same year as her son died and their reign have been called ''the age of Catherine Medici'' because she was the real power behind the throne.

PERSONAL OPINION: From my point of view, I really like the three stories that appear in the book because the book's plot and theme seem interesting to me. The fact that my favorite topics, mistery, terror and fiction, were used to write the stories has caused me a lot of interest to read it. The fact that the stories are based on true events it had entertained me. All the stories end up with the same final (all the characters die) so it saddens me a bit but the occurences that took place give the impression of being interesting and absorbing. I like all the characters that appear because their personalities are unique and the way of solving their problems are very unusual. The fact that the vocabulary isn't that cult or worship makes the book to be easy to grasp. I would recommend this book to the fans of fiction, especially to the persons that love mistery and history (it helps to understand the past or to learn about it).

AUTHOR: Simonica Oprisoni