When Jessica awakens in a French hospital on the day after the 2015 Paris attacks, all she can think of is fleeing the site of the horror she survived. Her friend Patrick urges her to reconsider her decision, and she reluctantly agrees to follow through with the trip they'd planned before the tragedy. At a country flea market Jessica finds a faded document concealed in an antique. As new friends help her to translate the archaic French, they uncover...

"Philip Mansel's book is poised to become the new standard English-language biography of Louis XIV, one that takes into account the revolution in the last fifty years in knowledge about every aspect of the king's reign: the army; Catholicism; diplomacy; the arts; music; medicine; homosexuality at his court; the role of women and the publication of the entire correspondence of his second wife, Madame de Maintenon. This is a global biography of a global...

In her historic mysteries The Rhetoric of Death and The Eloquence of Blood, Judith Rock created an atmosphere that "takes you back to fascinating and dangerous seventeenth-century Paris so well that I suspect her of being a time-traveler who's been there" (Ariana Franklin, national bestselling author of A Murderous Procession). Now, the latest novel to feature Charles du Luc finds the ex-soldier-turned-Jesuit caught up in royal intrigue... Versailles,...

A biography by an acclaimed historian and biographer of the most famous of the French monarchs, Louis XIV, presents a fresh perspective on his long and complicated reign.

"This radiant and thrilling debut follows a passionate love affair between two noblewomen who wish to free themselves from their repressive society, whatever the cost. In 17th century Paris, everyone has something to hide. The noblemen and women and writers consort with fortune tellers in the dark confines of their salons, servants practice witchcraft and black magic, and the titled poison family members to obtain inheritance. But for the Baroness...

"Versailles, 1682: a city of the rich, a living fairy-tale, Louis XIV's fever dream. It's a place of opulence, beauty, and power. But strip back the lavish exterior of polite society, and you'll find a dark undercurrent of sexual intrigue and vicious gossip. Nobody is safe here - no matter how highly born they are. No one knows this better than Madame Marie d'Aulnoy. Each week, a rogue group of intellectuals gather at her Parisian home to debate,...