| Description |
1 online resource |
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text file rda |
| Summary |
From the author of the beloved Josephine B. series, comes a spellbinding historical novel about a young woman who rises to become the confidante to the most powerful, provocative, and dangerous woman in the 17th-century French Court: the mistress of the charismatic Sun King. 1660, Paris: As the daughter of itinerant actors who once lit up the Parisian stages, Claudette always thought her future lay in the theater. But a series of chance encounters pull Claudette into the alluring orbit of the most beautiful woman in all of France: AthenaIs de Montespan, the mistress to Louis XIV and reigning "Shadow Queen." Impetuous by nature, AthenaIs wields a disconcerting amount of power-a fact that has ruffled many of the Sun King's key advisors. Needing someone to act as her eyes and ears, AthenaIs hires Claudette as a personal attendant. The young stagehand leaves the world of theater only to find that Court is very much like a stage, with outward shows of loyalty masking more devious intentions. This parallel is not lost on AthenaIs, who fears political enemies are plotting her ruin while young courtesans angle to take the coveted spot in the king's bed. Indeed, Claudette's supposedly respectable new position is marked by spying, rumormongering, illicit trysts, and titanic power struggles. As AthenaIs begins to lose her grip on the Sun King, her plots and fascination with the magical arts take a dark turn that makes Claudette question her allegiance to this mercurial figure-and puts the young maid's very life in jeopardy. Set against the gilded opulence of a newly constructed Versailles and the blood-stained fields of the Franco-Dutch War, The Shadow Queen is a seductive, gripping novel about lust, power, loyalty and the increasingly uneasy relationship between two strong-willed women whose actions have the ability to shape the future of France. |
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Pulled by chance from her traveling actor family into service under Athénaïs de Montespan, the influential mistress of Louis XIV, Claudette spies on personal and political rivals only to question her loyalty in the wake of Athénaïs's fascination with dark magic. |
| System Details |
Requires Boundless App. |
| Subject |
Montespan, Madame de, 1641-1707 -- Fiction.
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Louis XIV, King of France, 1638-1715 -- Fiction.
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Louis XIV, King of France, 1638-1715. |
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Montespan, Madame de, 1641-1707. |
| Chronological Term |
1643-1715 |
| Subject |
Mistresses -- Fiction.
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Magic -- Fiction.
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Magic. |
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Mistresses. |
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France -- History -- Louis XIV, 1643-1715 -- Fiction.
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France. |
| Genre |
Biographical fiction.
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Historical fiction.
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Electronic books. |
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Paranormal fiction.
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Fiction.
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History.
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Paranormal fiction.
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| Other Form: |
Electronic reproduction of (manifestation): Gulland, Sandra. Shadow Queen New York : Doubleday, 2014 9780385537520 (DLC) 2013013829 (OCoLC)841199141 |
| ISBN |
9780385537537 : $47.85 |
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0385537530 : $47.85 |
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