The Lioness

De: Gigi Griffis

Narrado por: Imani Jade Powers

The king killed the love of her life—and she’s going to make him pay.

Step into this epic revenge tale a la The Count of Monte Cristo, based on the true story of France’s most notorious lady pirate. By the author of The Empress—as seen on Netflix.

It’s 1343 and Jeanne de Clisson is out for revenge.

At forty-three, her perfect life—a loving husband, three young children, and two castles in the French countryside—shatters when Phillip VI, the King of France, arrests and beheads her husband for treachery.

There’s no evidence and no trial—only the execution. The nobles are shocked. The paranoid king is relieved. And Jeanne…

Jeanne wants the king’s head on a pike.

To get justice, she’ll take to the sea with a pirate fleet. But while she’s burning castles to the ground and sinking merchant ships, the king is hunting her. And the closer she gets to her revenge, the closer the king gets to the people Jeanne loves most.

©2025 Gigi Griffis (P)2025 Dreamscape Media

A Strong, Smart, Tough, Vengeful Woman!

I enjoyed this book more than I expected to. it is well written and researched. The narrator was excellent. As an anthropology major, archeology minor, I enjoy reading, researching, and finding hidden gems like this book.
The Historical Epilog I found rather biased and a bit bigoted. While there were certainly other ethnic people in Europe, particularly large port/trading cities, they made up less than 1%. (Estimated)
The author's assertions about all history being recorded by or dictated by "White Men," is short-sighted considering the the time, location, education availabilities, and access to resources needed to write something down.
Most history from this story's time, long before and after was done by monastic entities who were of course, males. Most monks/clergy could read and had access to items and storage needed to record Historical events.
To apply modern views or consensus that we now agree are sexist, misogynistic, prejudiced, is to judge a people using standards and ideals that simple did not exsist and would not come along for centuries.

The book starts off well…. And then not so much.

The book begins well, gets weird in the middle . It needed a better editor. Writers of historical fiction often create characters. These characters were strange. This story set in the 13th century has some things that are unlikely for the era, such as a cross dressing illusionist witch, and a female cat that somehow doesn’t have kittens in it’s 2 years as a traveling pet, a murder, where the body is dropped out a castle window where soldiers are billeted and no one notices the sound or blood spatter. The heroine was a lot like the self centered, whiny mean girls from high school. I stopped reading when Jeanne was telling her devoted sailor that she could not marry the woman he loved, because he still needed to avenge the death of her husband, 3 years after the fact… just stupid.