A thrilling, opulent love story set amid the French Revolution. A young impressionable English girl is forced to choose between her head and her heart when she falls for a dashing revolutionary. The author also wrote the Richard & Judy chosen The Rose of Sebastopol.
1788. Asa Ardleigh, the impressionable daughter of a country squire, has travelled to Paris with her sister Philippa and Philippa's new husband. In the heady days before the Revolution, they find a city fizzing with new ideas - and Asa meets and falls in love with a dashing revolutionary, Didier Paulin. When Asa is forced to return to England, their affair is curtailed, but they continue to exchange letters as storm clouds gather over France and war with England looms. Back in England, no one knows of Asa's liaison as the family's financial worries put pressure on her to marry. But then disturbing news reaches Asa from France, and she must decide whether to follow her head or her heart...
More Georgette Heyer than Hilary Mantel, this fluent novel captures that heady energy that proves so attractive to young women seeking 'very heaven in the arms of some revolutionary youth. -- Emma Hagestadt i NEWSPAPER 20120622
Author
About Katharine McMahon
Katharine McMahon was our Guest Editor in April 2010 - click here - to see the books that inspired her writing.
Katharine McMahon is the author of seven historical novels including The Alchemist’s Daughter, a Waterstone’s Paperback of the Year in 2006, the bestselling Rose of Sebastopol, a Richard & Judy Book Club selection in 2008, and The Crimson Rooms. She has taught in secondary schools, performed in local theatre and worked as a Royal Literary Fund fellow teaching writing skills at the Universities of Hertfordshire and Warwick. She lives in Hertfordshire. She relies on research to uncover connections and revelations in history which will plant the seeds for a novel - and is currently engaged, with some trepidation, in a book set during The French Revolution.
