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Title details for The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie - Available

The Sisters of Versailles

A Novel

#1.0 in series

by Sally Christie
Elizabeth Wiley
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
Set against the lavish backdrop of the French Court in the early years of the 18th century, The Sisters of Versailles is the extraordinary tale of the five Nesle sisters—Louise, Pauline, Diane, Hortense, and Marie-Anne—four of whom became mistresses to King Louis XV. Their scandalous story is stranger than fiction but true in every shocking, amusing, and heartbreaking detail.
Court intriguers are beginning to sense that young King Louis XV, after seven years of marriage, is tiring of his Polish wife. The race is on to find a mistress for the royal bed as various factions put their best foot—and women—forward. The King's scheming ministers push Louise, the eldest of the aristocratic Nesle sisters, into the arms of the King. Over the following decade, the four sisters—sweet, naïve Louise; ambitious Pauline; complacent Diane, and cunning Marie Anne—will conspire, betray, suffer, and triumph in a desperate fight for both love and power.
In the tradition of The Other Boleyn Girl, The Sisters of Versailles is a clever, intelligent, and absorbing novel that historical fiction fans will devour. Based on meticulous research on a group of women never before written about in English, Sally Christie's stunning debut is a complex exploration of power and sisterhood—of the admiration, competition, and even hatred that can coexist within a family when the stakes are high enough.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Mistresses of Versailles

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 1, 2015

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781494595364
      • File size: 438516 KB
      • Duration: 15:13:34

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Elizabeth Wiley offers a fine performance of this intriguing novel, told from the first-person points of view of the five Nesle sisters, four of whom allegedly shared the bed of King Louis XV, France's most "well-beloved" monarch. The sisters manipulate events and one another, and Wiley embodies each, giving them distinct personalities. Louise, Louis's first mistress, radiates a genteel sweetness. The second sister/mistress, Pauline, sounds precisely like the martinet she is. Wiley delivers the youngest, cruelest, and most devious, Marie-Anne, as sensual, scheming, and ultimately tragic. She presents Diane, fourth in the king's bed, as overly enthusiastic and overly talkative. Wiley's Hortense, strait-laced and proper, is the only sister impervious to Louis's charms. Listeners won't want to miss the next book in the proposed trilogy. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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