Leslie Carroll

Overview

Much has been written about Marie Antoinette, whose ascent to power-and steep downfall during the French Revolution-is legendary. But BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE offers a fresh perspective on Marie Antoinette’s young life, a topic mostly overlooked by historians until now. In this elegant and entertaining novel, Juliet Grey looks beyond the crown to the sacrifices a young, spoiled girl was compelled to make long before she could become the queen of France who would leave an indelible mark on history.

Marie Antoinette’s young life was a long series of hurdles. She sailed over a few of them with grace and equanimity. But some she stumbled over. Among vivid scenes in the Austrian imperial court in Vienna and the gilded splendor and manicured gardens of Versailles, we learn that Maria Antonia’s relationships with everyone from her cold ambitious mother to her awkward teenage husband, were fraught with a dramatic tension all their own.

In 1766, ten-year-old Austrian archduchess Maria Antonia learns that she is to one day wed the heir to the throne of France, its dauphin Louis Auguste. But she is far from ready to embrace her glittering destiny. Raised alongside her numerous siblings by the powerful and politically ambitious Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Maria Antonia undergoes a startling makeover before leaving her homeland at the age of fourteen to marry the awkward teenage boy who will one day become king of France. This grueling transformation includes sharp and painful orthodontia, four-hour hairstyling sessions, and lessons in perfecting the “Versailles Glide,” the elegant mode of traversing the magnificent halls of the French château. These historically accurate details bring this remarkable, often rocky and emotionally arduous coming-of-age story to fresh and vivid life. Out of her element and out of her depth, the teenage dauphine, naïve, homesick and unloved, must learn to navigate her way through the French court, a labyrinth of glamour and treachery, never sure whom to trust. The novel ends on May 10, 1774, the day that Louis XV, the grandfather of Marie Antoinette’s husband breathes his last. A bright and glorious future await Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, now king and queen of France.

Overview

A captivating novel of rich spectacle and royal scandal, Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow spans fifteen years in the fateful reign of Marie Antoinette, France’s most legendary and notorious queen.

Paris, 1774. At the tender age of eighteen, Marie Antoinette ascends to the French throne alongside her husband, Louis XVI. But behind the extravagance of the young queen’s elaborate silk gowns and dizzyingly high coiffures, she harbors deeper fears for her future and that of the Bourbon dynasty.

From the early growing pains of marriage to the joy of conceiving a child, from her passion for Swedish military attaché Axel von Fersen to the devastating Affair of the Diamond Necklace, Marie Antoinette tries to rise above the gossip and rivalries that encircle her. But as revolution blossoms in America, a much larger threat looms beyond the gilded gates of Versailles-one that could sweep away the French monarchy forever.

Overview

Confessions of Marie Antoinette, the riveting and sweeping final novel in Juliet Grey’s trilogy on the life of the legendary French queen, blends rich historical detail with searing drama, bringing to life the early years of the French Revolution and the doomed royal family’s final days.

Versailles, 1789. As the burgeoning rebellion reaches the palace gates, Marie Antoinette finds her privileged and peaceful life swiftly upended by violence. Once her loyal subjects, the people of France now seek to overthrow the crown, placing the heirs of the Bourbon dynasty in mortal peril.

Displaced to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, the royal family is propelled into the heart of the Revolution. There, despite a few staunch allies, they are surrounded by cunning spies and vicious enemies. Yet despite the political and personal threats against her, Marie Antoinette remains above all a devoted wife and mother, standing steadfastly by her husband, Louis XVI, and protecting their young son and daughter. And though the queen and her family tryto flee, and she secretly attempts to arrange their rescue from the clutches of the Revolution, they cannot outrun the dangers encircling them, or escape their shocking fate.