“It was too much,' she murmured. "Too much of everything. Blood. Death. Fear. Wasted hope...”Paris, 1789. Sophie Lutrell leaves her comfortable life in the English countryside behind for an extended visit with her cousin Héloïse de Guinot. The two cousins are more like sisters, and they're soon swept up in the romance and glamour of the Parisian court - and Sophie might forget her almost-fiance from home and let herself be swept off her feet by the dashing American William Jones (a secret spy for the American government). Héloïse is unhappily married off to the Comte de Choissy, but she soon finds love in the arms of a French soldier, Louis d'Epinon. The third female in this story is that of Héloïse's maid, Marie-Victoire Bonnard, who finds love in the arms of a revolutionary - but that love comes at a great personal cost.“They threw their hats into the air, screamed their joy and fought to dip their handkerchiefs into the blood.”Sophie is so caught up in the glitz and glamour of her life in Paris that she hides her head in the sand ignores the warnings to leave France while she still can, and when madness takes over and The Terror begins, it just might be too late...“You have heard what they say about the Conciergerie? The hell from which there is no route save by the little window of the guillotine.”Let me tell you, that was some pretty intense stuff at the end. I did have a pretty rocky start with this one, the early chapters were very short and there was a lot of head hopping (third person, but still annoying), and I admit to thinking about bailing out of this, and glad I hung on. The different POVs give the reader a bird's-eye view from multiple perspectives, from the glitz of Versailles to the underbelly of Paris. I'll just add one word of caution - this is not a fluffy, feel good, romantic HEA kind of book, so if that's your cuppa tea I suggest you move along. One word of caution for cover geeks, my copy ISBN #0-553-28448-7 has the cover posted above, but when you search swap/seller sites by this number it pulls up the so-ugly-I-won't-even-post-it-here cover. I have no idea which cover you'll get, so don't blame me if you get that other one.One odd thing is the author's Afterward. She writes as if some of the characters in the novel were real historical people, yet I've not had a hit on any of them on Google. Any one out there have an answer for me?
This is an epic story of the French Revolution along the lines of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities; it follows the lives of three women, French noblewoman Heloise, her English cousin Sophie, and a French servant Marie-Victoire. The revolution is described through their experiences and those of Heloise's despised husband,her lover, Sophie's fiance Ned, and the American spy William Jones. The evils of the revolution are personified in the peasant Jacques who rapes Marie-Victoire and escapes to Paris where he throws himself into the rebellion and plots revenge against Heloise's family. Although I have studied the French Revolution, I am no expert, but the events and the atmosphere of hate, resentment, ghastly violence, and pervasive fear seem to be accurately depicted.
