DNFed. The voice is great. The story is interesting. But the pattern of stating things as if they are facts and then backtracking to say that they aren't confirmed details wasn't for me. I don't mind the speculation, I think, but would strongly prefer to know ahead of time what is speculation instead of finding out that something stated confidently is actually speculation after the fact.

Sorry I’m posting this late!

I really enjoyed this. It was interesting and fun and I would definitely recommend it to non fic lovers.

Thanks to Netgalley and the author for the e copy

I didn't enjoy this book. I love learning about people that I don't know about especially women of color. I haven't read a nonfiction book that so openly says they are making liberties and just making assumptions. Does it happen? I'm sure it does but I was really put off by the constant "I am making assumptions about their clothes or conversations." I'd love to try this book again without the extra commentary.

I was really optimistic for this book, both for Janina Edwards's narration and the subject matter. I really enjoy a history of a lesser known figure, particularly overlooked stories of women and people of color. I was also intrigued by the true crime/1920s underground element. Unfortunately, this book does run into a major/common challenge of these types of histories: limited historical sources indicating significant gaps in the archives. The author responds by pulling in more secondary/contextual research to help round out the narrative, which is fine, if not what I was hoping for. I have more of an issue with the pivot into creative nonfiction to fill in gaps of the portrait of Stephanie St. Clair. The imagined situations of what she felt or how conversations might've gone are not the sort of storytelling I want in my history or biography nonfiction reads.

As someone who loves to find hidden gems, especially about women in history who have been overlooked, I was very excited to find this book about the enterprising businesswoman and crime boss Stephanie St. Clair, also known as Madame Queen.

The biography of St. Clair is fascinating and I enjoyed learning the truth of her life and the history and culture during this time period. Where the book fell short for me was the very frequent references from the author about what she imagined to have happened, what she imagined to have been said, as with each reference it diminished what was to come. I appreciate from the author's foreword that it was difficult to find concrete information about St. Clair, but then I think if that's the case this would have been far better written as a historical fiction book where she'd have had the luxury of weaving in her suppositions more adeptly.

Having said that, the parts that were good, were very, very good, and I wouldn't have learned about the indomitable Madame Queen, her strength, her individualism, and her passion for fighting the injustices committed by the corrupt cops of this time without this book.

This audiobook had the benefit of the extremely talented and expressive Janina Edwards as narrator, and she definitely hit this out of the park with different vocal techniques for the various characters, in addition to different French dialects (!!). Incredible!

I thank NetGalley, Harlequin Audio, and the author Mary Kay McBrayer for this ARC audiobook in exchange for my honest review of Madame Queen.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an audio copy of this book. I was excited to learn about Madame Sinclair’s life after hearing of her recently. This book was an interesting premise, but I couldn’t get into it as much as I had hoped I would. I think I would’ve preferred either an entirely fictionalized story based on her life, or an entirely non-fiction biography of her life, but somewhere in the middle just didn’t work for me unfortunately and it was hard to follow.

Curiously formatted book about a historical figure who deserves more attention. This is basically annotated narrative nonfiction, though (keeping in mind that I listened to the audiobook) I think it's not so much annotated as interspersed with nonfiction paragraphs. This wasn't really a problem for me, I enjoy both regular nonfiction and narrative nonfiction. But I did occasionally find myself thinking the author really needed to pick a style. If you don't like narrative nonfiction, I wouldn't recommend this book. if you do like narrative nonfiction, give it a read (and imagine the writer is a character who is telling you the story, because her voice is most definately there.) Also I would have really appreciated a bibliography.

As somebody whose family has lived in Hells Kitchen since the 1800s: What on earth did the author mean by a "sophisticated Manhattan accent"? I get that she doesn't live near the city (it comes up early in the book) but her editor should have asked her to clarify the neighborhood. The audiobook reader gave the lawyer in question a kind of "mid-Atlantic" accent, which is not a Manhattan accent. I don't blame the reader, but there were times throughout the book when I was reminded that the author isn't that familiar with the city. That's just the only instance which stuck in my head until the end.

𝑴𝑨𝑫𝑨𝑴𝑬 𝑸𝑼𝑬𝑬𝑵 𝒃𝒚 𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝑲𝒂𝒚 𝑴𝒄𝑩𝒓𝒂𝒚𝒆𝒓 𝑵𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒃𝒚 𝑱𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒂 𝑬𝒅𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒔 was a @netgalley pick from @htpbooks_audio that called out to me and is coming out June 3rd!

I loved the idea of learning more about the racketeering Harlem Crime Boss, Stephanie St. Clair. I had not, like most of you probably, heard of this woman, and found the idea of a Strong Black Brilliant Woman lost to history not surprising and in need of remedy.

Unfortunately, the structure of this book left me struggling to engage. I was fascinated by the biographical sections, but then it went into an imagined dialog and filling in of blank scenarios with the author saying it was imagined every time. I think it was meant to be conversational, but it felt like an odd mix of storytelling. I wish it had been a straight narrative nonfiction or even a historical fiction. In fact, I do think this would be a great resource for anyone wanting to write a historical fiction of this woman! I think that would be more up my alley.

If you enjoy biographies and a bit of conversational side imaginings, this will be a fantastic story! This woman deserves to be known and I appreciate the research the author did in sharing her life. The narration was also smooth and easy to follow, so any format would be good.