All the time, customers come in and want some guilty pleasure reading.  People define it in many different ways for me it is historical fiction…I love a good “bodice ripper!”  These two titles in the genre that I have read this spring aren’t as racy as some others so I think that these will appeal to a variety of you.

Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution by Michelle Moran

Marie Grosholtz , a talented wax sculptress,  torn between two polarizing worlds, whose main goal is to make her ‘family’ business successful.  Marie is thrilled when she has finally achieved her goal of getting the royal family of Louis XVI and Marie Antionette to visit the Salon de Cire and see their wax likenesses.  She knows that with the royal ‘stamp of approval’ that she and the museum will become famous and Parisians from every walk of life will come to the Salon to receive the latest news on fashion, gossip and even politics.  The visit goes even beyond her hopes when she receives a summons to come to Versailles as the royal sculpting tutor to Princesse Elizabeth, sister of Louis XVI.  At Versailles, where candles are only lit once before they are discarded, Marie enters a world far different from her own on the Boulevard du Temple, where many people are selling their teeth to be able to feed their families.  Many of Marie’s friends, Camille Desmoulins, Jean-Paul Marat and Maximilien Robespierre, are holding meetings in cafes and salons across the city lashing out against the monarchy which is leading to talk of revolution.  This is where Marie soon finds herself trying to keep a balance between being a royalist and a revolutionary even as the  Reign of Terror becomes a force to be reckoned with.

Elizabeth I by Margaret George

This novel takes us through the last 25 years of Elizabeth Tudor’s  reign as the ‘Virgin Queen” of England.  What we learn about Elizabeth is while she was the virgin queen she did not lack for suitors, while her navy defeated the Spanish Armada she hated war, and while dressed in gorgeous gowns and dazzling jewelry she was a notorious ‘penny pincher’.  We also meet Lettice Knollys, Elizabeth’s cousin (Mary Boleyn’s granddaughter) and rival, due to Lettice’s marriage to Robert Dudley, whom the Queen always had a ‘special’ relationship with.

Lettice has been banished from court but her son, Robert the Earl of Essex, from her first marriage is gaining in popularity with Elizabeth, the courtiers (especially the ladies), and the English people.  We are also introduced to many of the strong personalities that made the Age of Elizabeth great, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Dudley, Raleigh and Drake, and understand the relationships that Elizabeth had with these men as a Queen first and a woman second.

 

I really enjoyed both of these novels being that they are both about strong women who did not let anything stand in the way of getting what they wanted.  They both had to play two sides of the coin to achieve ‘greatness’ whether it be for themselves or county.

 

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