Any book that introduces its protagonist with the sentence “Slim, defiant, Charlotte outfaced them, her great eyes wide, her tender sixteen-year-old breasts straining at the bodice of her plain white gown” is probably only going to go downhill from there. I’m afraid that my initial fears about Marie Muir’s The Cup of Froth were well deserved.  It was uneven, overly emotional, ridiculously dramatic, and a very modern interpretation of a historical period. Despite all of this, I persevered with the book, because the story it was telling, if not its own way of telling it, was so interesting that it deserved my time.  Blogging about the book seemed particularly timely, as the Charlotte of The Cup of Froth, she of the “great eyes,” is Charlotte of Belgium, later Carlota of Mexico.  She came up in discussions of this week’s Rate the Dress, because the fashions she is known for influenced traditional Mexican folk costume. Even badly written, her story is fascinating.  The child of Leopold I, King of the Belgians by his second wife, she …