A historically authentic and intelligently crafted period drama that’s romantically stirring.
In this historical novel set in 18th-century France, the mistress of a powerful aristocrat becomes caught between her principles and prosperity.
Henriette d’Augustin is one of several mistresses kept by Duc Hugo d’Amboise and, as a result, lives a life of comfortable leisure in his chateau with her daughter, Solange. But the Duc becomes infatuated with his most recent romantic addition, Letitia du Massenet, “ravishing and virginal,” who “possesses an uncommon wit for a girl of eighteen.” The Duc desperately pines for a son, one thing his wife, Charlotte, despite years of effort, has proven unable to give him. She feels predictably threatened by Letitia’s hold on her husband. Charlotte is encouraged by Madame Céline de Poitiers, another mistress who is worried that she too will be cast aside and left penniless, to conspire against Letitia. Their collaborative efforts grow increasingly diabolical, all the more so after Letitia becomes pregnant. Charlotte recruits the help of Romain de Villiers, an old friend and tarot reader with whom she engages in an illicit romance. Murdoch (Stone Circle, 2017) deftly portrays the unenviable way in which Henriette becomes entangled in the web of Charlotte’s campaign to ruin Letitia. Henriette wants to defend Letitia, who is sorely dependent on the Duc for funds, but is wary of crossing Charlotte, for whom loyalty is a zero-sum game. Henriette has her livelihood, reputation, and daughter to protect as well as a closely guarded secret that, if uncovered, could spell her downfall. The author expertly re-creates high-society France at the beginning of the 18th century—this is a well-researched and historically valid depiction. In addition, she skillfully keeps the plot a tensile cord of suspense, revealing and concealing just enough to keep readers immersed and guessing. And while she doesn’t break any new literary ground, this book isn’t an overly sentimental iteration of the genre. Consider Henriette’s counsel to Letitia: “You see child, men are quite stupid and simple. They do not plan, devise, or see subtleties the way we do. This is our advantage.”
A historically authentic and intelligently crafted period drama that’s romantically stirring.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-947548-22-0
Page Count: 253
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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