Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
France, Fashion, And Fortitude
Author Guest , History / September 24, 2018

With Paris Fashion Week beginning September 24, lovers of style and all things French turn their eyes to the City of Lights. In addition to producing iconic clothing, France’s twists, turns and sometime abrupt societal changes—from monarchy to revolution to empire–have long inspired historical novelists. Moving chronologically, we start with MADAME TUSSAUD: A NOVEL by best-selling author Michelle Moran. Trained by a Swiss doctor she calls her uncle, Marie Grosholtz becomes a skilled artist in the sculpting of wax and an astute businesswoman who helps run the family firm, Salon de Cire, which displays wax portraits and tableaux of the foremost personalities in France. Although her family’s home is a meeting place for budding revolutionaries like Desmoulins, Marat and Robespierre, when the royal family, impressed by her artistry, invites her to become a tutor to Princess Elizabeth, she cannot refuse. But as she gets to know her student, the king, and the queen better, she finds herself balancing a fine line between sympathy for her royal employers and the increasingly strident demands of the reformers. And when reform becomes the madness of the Reign of Terror, she must put pragmatism before loyalty and do what is necessary to insure that…