Book Review: Confessions of Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey & Giveaway

Confessions of Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey
Book 3 in Marie Antoinette Trilogy
ARC, Paperback, 466 pages
Ballantine Books
September 24, 2013
★★★★☆

Genre: Historical Fiction

Source: Received from publisher for review for HFBRT tour

“Confessions of Marie Antoinette, the riveting and sweeping final novel in Juliet Grey’s trilogy on the life of the legendary French queen, blends rich historical detail with searing drama, bringing to life the early years of the French Revolution and the doomed royal family’s final days.

Versailles, 1789. As the burgeoning rebellion reaches the palace gates, Marie Antoinette finds her privileged and peaceful life swiftly upended by violence. Once her loyal subjects, the people of France now seek to overthrow the crown, placing the heirs of the Bourbon dynasty in mortal peril.

Displaced to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, the royal family is propelled into the heart of the Revolution. There, despite a few staunch allies, they are surrounded by cunning spies and vicious enemies. Yet despite the political and personal threats against her, Marie Antoinette remains above all a devoted wife and mother, standing steadfastly by her husband, Louis XVI, and protecting their young son and daughter. And though the queen and her family try to flee, and she secretly attempts to arrange their rescue from the clutches of the Revolution, they cannot outrun the dangers encircling them, or escape their shocking fate.”

The final installment of Grey’s trilogy of Marie Antoinette covers the final portion of the queen’s life, the downfall of the monarchy. I find this phase of Marie Antoinette’s life to be full of all the real drama she faced – not just the petty stuff, but the time when everything become very real for her. MA goes from being entirely ensconced in her dream world of plays, fripperies, and dances to the gritty world of the people in their revolution. Decisions become a matter of life and death – and each decision has to be weighed out. This is some pretty heavy stuff and is the more serious in tone of the three novels. Despite the tendency of the events toward the macabre, Grey does a great job of continuing to evolve the character of Marie Antoinette and Co. Like other novels where you know from the start that the ending is going to be anything but happy, the author puts you into the mind of Marie Antoinette and makes you believe that there is a chance that the outcome could be different.

Out of the three MA novels I think I liked this one the least (despite my giving them the same star rating) and I can’t exactly place the reason. It might be because of the heavier tone.

There was one thing that I didn’t really like in the style of the novel and that was the usage of another narrator, a member of the revolutionaries, in addition to Marie Antoinette. From what I remember from the first two novels, Marie Antoinette was the sole narrator, so I didn’t really like the addition of this new narrator that I didn’t have a history with already. I understand the inclusion of this narrator – with the first person narration of MA you miss out on what is really happening on the street during the Revolution – but I think I would have liked the flow better without this second narrator.

Overall, as a whole, this series does a great job in my opinion of representing the complete Marie Antoinette and her evolution of character.

Author Juliet Grey also has written the prior books in the series Becoming Marie Antoinette and Days of Splendor Days of Sorrow. You can visit Grey’s website for additional information about the book. If you would like to preview the story before reading it, why not try out this excerpt of the book?

My reviews of other books by this author:

• Becoming Marie Antoinette
• Days of Splendor Days of Sorrow

Reviews of this book by other bloggers:

• Austenprose
• Broken Teepee

Here are some choices for purchasing the book: Amazon, B&N, RJ Julia (my fav indie bookstore).

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You can follow along with the rest of the blog tour by visiting the HFVBT website or on Twitter with the following hashtag: #ConfessionsOfMATour.

I also have a giveaway of one copy of Confessions of Marie Antoinette up for grabs to a US resident as part of the tour.  Giveaway is open until October 27th.  Submit your entries through Rafflecopter below.  Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Copyright © 2013 by The Maiden’s Court

Book Review: Days of Splendor Days of Sorrow by Juliet Grey & Giveaway

Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow by Juliet Grey
Book 2 in the Marie Antoinette trilogy

ARC, Paperback, 448 pages

Ballantine Books

May 15, 2012

★★★★☆

Genre: Historical Fiction

Source: Received from publisher for review – also participating in HF Virtual Book Tour

“Paris, 1774. At the tender age of eighteen, Marie Antoinette ascends to the French throne alongside her husband, Louis XVI. But behind the extravagance of the young queen’s elaborate silk gowns and dizzyingly high coiffures, she harbors deeper fears for her future and that of the Bourbon dynasty. 

From the early growing pains of marriage to the joy of conceiving a child, from her passion for Swedish military attaché Axel von Fersen to the devastating Affair of the Diamond Necklace, Marie Antoinette tries to rise above the gossip and rivalries that encircle her. But as revolution blossoms in America, a much larger threat looms beyond the gilded gates of Versailles-one that could sweep away the French monarchy forever.”

I have never been a huge fan of Marie Antoinette, or the French Revolution for that matter, but author Juliet Grey has a way of making this period new and exciting for me. In her first book, Becoming Marie Antoinette the author made me feel for the young girl who was leaving her home and being forced to become someone else entirely in a world vastly different than the court she left behind. In this installment, Grey shows us a Marie Antoinette who is coming into her own as queen and dealing with some MAJOR life changing incidents. Grey makes a Marie Antoinette who is humanized and someone that the regular person can relate to with all of her fears, wants, and concerns for her family and friends. Not only does she flesh out Marie Antoinette but we really get to know other members of the French royal circle – from the King and Queen’s families to their friends and hangers-on.

She does not miss out on including the important events, such as the Diamond Necklace affair, the meetings with the revolutionary forces in France, and the American Revolution – but she makes these events feel fresh and new. I liked reading about the courts perception of Benjamin Franklin – what a hoot! It was also interesting to see how the Diamond Necklace Affair actually played out.

The one thing that annoyed me throughout this book was the almost constant references to vulgar nickname given to Marie Antoinette – l’Autrichienne. The first time it was mentioned and explained I appreciated it and the character’s rumination about it. However by the 6th or 7th time (and yes it was at least that many) I was like, “I get it already, let’s move on!”.

Overall this was a very interesting read. The ending leave you on a slightly happy note in amongst all of the turmoil that happened in the end of the book – however knowing what is to come in book three, you can’t enjoy it too much.

If you would like to preview the story before reading it, why not try out this excerpt of the book?

Reviews of this book by other bloggers:

• Medieval Bookworm
• Quirky Girls Read

Buy the Book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | RJ Julia

Also by Juliet Grey:

Becoming Marie Antoinette (Book #1)
[My Review]

Confessions of Marie Antoinette (Book #3)
[My Review]

Find Juliet Grey: Website
 

Follow the Tour

On the HF Virtual Book Tour website or onTwitter with the following hashtag: #DaysOfSplendorVirtualTour.

Giveaway!

I have a giveaway of 1 copy of Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow to offer for a reader in the USA or Canada. Please fill out the Rafflecopter below for entry. Last day to enter is November 10th. Good luck.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Copyright © 2012 by The Maiden’s Court

Book Review: Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey

Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey

Book 1 in the Marie Antoinette trilogy

ARC, Paperback, 480 pages

Ballantine Books

August 9, 2011

★★★★☆

Genre: Historical Fiction

Source: Received from publisher as part of TLC Book Tour

"This enthralling confection of a novel, the first in a new trilogy, follows the transformation of a coddled Austrian archduchess into the reckless, powerful, beautiful queen Marie Antoinette.

Why must it be me? I wondered. When I am so clearly inadequate to my destiny? 

Raised alongside her numerous brothers and sisters by the formidable empress of Austria, ten-year-old Maria Antonia knew that her idyllic existence would one day be sacrificed to her mother’s political ambitions. What she never anticipated was that the day in question would come so soon. 

Before she can journey from sunlit picnics with her sisters in Vienna to the glitter, glamour, and gossip of Versailles, Antonia must change everything about herself in order to be accepted as dauphine of France and the wife of the awkward teenage boy who will one day be Louis XVI. Yet nothing can prepare her for the ingenuity and influence it will take to become queen. 

Filled with smart history, treacherous rivalries, lavish clothes, and sparkling jewels, Becoming Marie Antoinette will utterly captivate fiction and history lovers alike."

Becoming Marie Antoinette is the first book in a planned trilogy about the life of this notoriously well know Queen of France. In this first outing, author Juliet Grey takes us on a journey from the Austrian court at Schonbrunn where Maria Antonia spent many of her younger days to the glistening palace at Versailles where Marie Antoinette emerges. For me, this was my first real foray into a novel about this queen and I was not at all disappointed with the details of her growing up that were included.

Most books on Marie Antoinette skim over the details of her younger life to get to “the good stuff” - her downfall courtesy of Madame Guillotine. One of my favorite aspects of this book was that the first half of the book really focuses on her formative years growing up under the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. You really get a feel for that court - which also does not usually get much of a novel treatment - and Marie’s family. Her sisters, especially Charlotte and Josepha, were her closest companions. We also learn a lot about their mother, Empress Maria Theresa and oldest brother, Emperor Joseph. It was refreshing to get to know a court that is not usually represented in fiction.

One of the most vivid scenes for me was during the time Marie had to go through improvements to become acceptable to marry the dauphin of France. I did not realize that they had braces back then and the process that was described sounded very familiar to my own experience with braces at age 10. This scene was probably the one thing that really endeared Marie to me - although I have to imagine that her experience with them was probably worse then mine!

I had a love/hate relationship with the writing style of this novel. First the good - I really loved the French and German that were peppered throughout the narrative. Even without know hardly any of either of those languages it was easy enough to derive the meaning from the context. During her years at the Austrian court this switch between languages served to show which state of mind Marie was in - slipping easily back into German when excited or upset. I did, however, have issues with some of the word choices used. There were times when it felt like I needed to have a dictionary constantly at the ready because every fourth or fifth word I didn’t know - and I tend to consider that I have a decent vocabulary. There was an overuse of “Thesaurus words” which really left me frustrated because they were either an unnecessary choice or frequently over used. It just made for much slower reading. Here is an example:

“Immediately I felt inadequate and wished that my own bosom was as pulchritudinous and had been molded to such perfection” (ARC pg 223).

Overall, I really enjoyed this take on the teenage years of Marie Antoinette’s life. We leave her on the verge of just becoming queen. I would recommend this novel to anyone who is a fan of Marie Antoinette and wants to see a more personable side of her. The second book Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow will pick up where we left our newly minted king and queen.

This is author Juliet Grey’s first novel in a planned trilogy. If you would like to preview the story before reading it, why not try out this excerpt of the book?

Reviews of this book by others:

• The Literary Life of the Well Read Wife
• A Bookish Affair
  

You can also watch the book trailer below:

Buy the Book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | RJ Julia

Also by Juliet Grey

Days of Splendor Days of Sorrow (Book 2)
[My Review]

Confessions of Marie Antoinette (Book 3)
[My Review]

Find Juliet Grey: Website

Copyright © 2011 by The Maiden’s Court