Rosalind Laker, To Dance With Kings

To Dance With Kings

Rosalind Laker

Crown Three Rivers, May 22 2007, $14.95

ISBN: 0307352552

In 1664 in the tiny village of Versailles, Jeanne Dremont, a peasant fan-maker, gives birth to her only child, whom she called Marguerite. Witnessing the birth is Augustin, a not quite twenty drunken aristocrat, who was actually coming to pay his respects along with his comrades like much of the French aristocracy to King Louis XIV. Excited by what he observed, he vows to come back for newborn Marguerite when she turns seventeen.

The Sun King's court accepts Marguerite as one of them, which leads to her daughter Jasmin being raised in affluence and privilege as a favorite on the monarch. Her daughter Violette enjoys the wastrel lifestyle that proves the descendants of that fan maker have come a long way from their peasant mud. However, all of what these generations of women have achieved will implode when Violette's daughter Rose becomes a lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette.

This historical saga follows four generations of women as each rises a bit higher from their peasant roots only to find everything gone once the Revolution began. The entreating sweeping storyline chronologically focuses on each of the femmes enabling the audience to obtain deep insight into a century and a quarter France prior to and during the Revolution. Historical fiction readers will want to dance with Rosalind Laker as she provides a compelling drama that vividly showcases late seventeenth and eighteenth France through a strong cast.

Harriet Klausner