Back in print after more than twenty years and for the first time in eBook, Madame Serpent, the first novel in Jean Plaidy"s classic Catherine de Medici trilogy, introduces readers to the young de Medici princess. Sullen-eyed and broken-hearted, fourteen-year-old Catherine de Medici arrives in Marseilles to marry Henry of Orleans, second son of the King of France. On the promise of a dowry fit for a king, Catherine has left her true love in Italy, forced into trading her future for a stake in the French crown.     Amid the glittering fetes and banquets of the most immoral court in sixteenth-century Europe, the reluctant bride becomes a passionate but unwanted wife. Catherine is humiliated when she spies Henry with his lover, the infamous Diane de Poitiers. Tortured by what she sees, Catherine becomes occupied by a ruthless ambition destined to make her the most despised woman in France: the dream that one day the French crown will be worn by a Medici heir...     Madame Serpent opens Jean Plaidy"s bestselling Catherine de Medici trilogy. Touchstone will publish The Italian Woman in January 2013 and Queen Jezebel will follow in May 2013.