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

Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow by Juliet Grey

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.

Author Juliet Grey also has written the first book in this series, Becoming Marie Antoinette. 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

Reviews of this book by other bloggers:

• Medieval Bookworm
• Quirky Girls Read

You can follow along with the rest of the HF Virtual Book Tour for additional reviews, author guest posts, interviews, and giveaways. Also on Twitter with the following hashtag: #DaysOfSplendorVirtualTour.

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

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Interview with Juliet Grey

I have the wonderful opportunity to introduce all of you readers to a new novelist in the historical fiction genre.  Juliet Grey's new book, Becoming Marie Antoinette, was released on August 9th and has already made quite the impression.  As the first book in a trilogy about the life of Marie Antoinette we get to see what made Marie who she would later be.  I had the chance to ask Juliet some of my most pressing questions about this book, the trilogy, and what it was like to take on someone who has been frequently written about.  So without further ado...

What is it about Marie Antoinette that brought you to her story?

I researched the lives of Marie Antoinette and her husband Louis Auguste, the dauphin of France for a nonfiction book; and the more I learned about the pair of them the more I realized how maligned they were. In essence, they became scapegoats for all the ills in France. Up until about 15 years before their marriage, their respective countries had been enemies for 950 years. Always perceived as the outsider, Marie Antoinette was blamed for everything from bad harvests and crop failure to the national deficit when France’s treasury was already bankrupted by Louis XV’s government by the time Marie Antoinette arrived. In fact, the biggest reason for France’s empty coffers during her husband’s reign was the enormous amount of money spent on military aid to the American colonists during our revolution.

There have been many books written about Marie Antoinette and this period in French history. What would you say sets your book (and the rest of the upcoming trilogy) apart from what is already out there?

Becoming Marie Antoinette is devoted completely to her early years (from age 10-18), a period that many novelists gloss over or rush through in order to get to (or spend more time at) Versailles. I didn’t have to rush because have two more novels to develop all of that. In Becoming Marie Antoinette I show the events and years that shaped the girl who became the woman, the queen, of the later years and explode many of the stereotypes depicted in some of those novels. No other portrayals show in detail, if at all, the extensive makeover she had to undergo as a preteen. That information was even hard to find in her biographies. I hunted for the names of each of the men responsible for transforming the archduchess Maria Antonia and where possible tried to find portraits of them because it was really important to me to be as accurate as possible, even though I was writing a novel. It was a matter of pride with me to see how much I could find without having to make it up. Another thing that sets my personal depiction of Marie Antoinette apart is that she did not go from heedless to headless, as some of her portrayers would lead people to believe. She was not a bubbleheaded spendthrift. Nothing exists in a vacuum. I was convinced that there was a rationale behind everything she did and in my novel when she behaves a certain way I make sure to justify it.

Another thing that sets Becoming Marie Antoinette and the rest of the trilogy apart is that while most of the events of the books are grounded in historical fact, in addition to the “greatest hits,” which people will expect to see, and which deserve to be there (things like births, deaths, her husband’s coronation), what intrigued me most as I did my research were the little things, or snatches of actual conversations or diary entries; and I tried to incorporate them as often as possible. My research materials are peppered with post notes saying “use this!” stuck to them.

What has been the most challenging aspect of writing this novel?

Managing the scope of the era’s history—politically and socially, because I wasn’t just dealing with France, but the Western European and North American colonial stage at the time. I had to be sure to keep it centered on Marie Antoinette’s story, but because it’s told from her point of view and she’s only a girl during Becoming Marie Antoinette (spanning the age from about 10 to 18), she only has a limited view of this vast world and there’s also only so much she would know. But I had to let my readers know what else was going on at the time and why her marriage to the dauphin of France was so vital to world politics. I kept thinking about that Zen-like image of the beat of the butterfly’s wing that eventually causes a tsunami. Actually, I lie. I just thought of that as I wrote this. But it’s just as apt.

Was there anything that you learned about Marie Antoinette during the research process that surprised you?

I had to omit some of the references to her numerous charitable and philanthropic gifts because they weren’t organic to the narrative, but she was tremendously compassionate and wore her heart on her sleeve. Marie Antoinette has been wildly misrepresented by textbook writers as insensitive to the suffering of her people—the woman who supposedly exclaimed “Let them eat cake!” when she heard the poor had no bread, although that characterization couldn’t be farther from the truth. Anyone who knew anything about Marie Antoinette’s character would know she never could have said it, or anything remotely like it. For the record, the actual phrase is qu’ils mangent de la brioche and if it was said at all, it predates Marie Antoinette by several generations, possibly uttered by the Spanish-born Maria Theresa, wife of Louis Quatorze, the Sun King.) In any case, during my research I repeatedly came across references to Marie Antoinette’s charity.

Can you give us an idea of what we will be seeing in the rest of the trilogy?

The middle novel, Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow, covers the glamorous, if turbulent, years of her reign (including all the events of the notorious affair of the diamond necklace), picking up with the death of Louis XV in 1774 and the ascension of her husband Louis XVI to the throne, and ending in July, 1789 with the fall of the Bastille and the immediate events of its aftermath. The final book in the trilogy takes us from 1789 right up to the scaffold with Marie Antoinette on October 16, 1793. And . . . did she consummate her passion for Count Axel von Fersen? You’ll have to wait for the next two books to see how I develop this most controversial and disputed of historical love stories.

Thank-you Juliet for taking time from your crazy writing schedule to enlighten us!

Juliet Grey has extensively researched European Royal History and is a particular devotee of Marie Antoinette.  She and her husband divide their time between New York City and southern Vermont.  You can visit her website for more information about the book.



Copyright © 2011 by The Maiden’s Court

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Giveaway: Becoming Marie Antoinette

Copyright © 2011 by The Maiden’s Court

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Book Review: Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey

Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey

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?

My review of other books by this author:

• Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow (book 2)

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:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2011 by The Maiden’s Court

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