![]() ![]() 10-14)Ĭhainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.Įvery four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Endnotes explain that Ernestine actually did live at Versailles as companion to Thèrése, though many of the other characters in the story are fictitious. The excesses (and odors) of the French court are seen through Isabelle’s perceptions in this first-person narrative full of description and intriguing insight into the period. Isabelle’s brother George works in the Marquis de Lafayette’s stables he tries to open Isabelle’s eyes to the desperate state of the populace Isabelle, in turn, tries to explain to Thérèse that not everyone lives like a princess. ![]() Isabelle then lives a split existence, frantically making lace with her struggling family in the mornings and then dressed in fine clothes and spending the afternoon with Thérèse and her companion, Ernestine. Bringing lace to the palace at Versailles allows her to be seen by the beautiful Queen, Marie Antoinette, who invites her to become companion to the queen’s daughter Thérèse. Eleven-year-old Isabelle makes lace like her mother and grandmother. A lively historical novel about a young lacemaker at Versailles just before the French Revolution. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |