Product Description

France, 1680. Louis XIV, the Sun King, is at the height of his power. The court at Versailles is a paradise for privileged young women. Jeanne Yvette Mas Du Bois is unlike most other courtiers. Her thirst for knowledge often incurs her father's brutal wrath. But her uncle encourages Jeanne's independence, secretly teaching her fencing in the palace's labyrinthine basement. . .

When two of the king's Musketeers are beset by criminals who are mere feet from Jeanne's fencing lesson, she intervenes, saving one of the Musketeers' lives. Hidden behind her mask, Jeanne is mistaken for a man. As "Jean Luc," Jeanne is admitted to an inner circle where she learns of an assassination plot against the Queen. As Jean Luc, she is permitted to bring her intelligence and swordsmanship to bear. And as Jean Luc, she is free to love the man of her choosing. . .even if she can never have him. Now, with the Queen in jeopardy, and her own double life making her privy to the tangled intrigues at court, Jeanne is in a powerful yet increasingly perilous position.

Brimming with lush period detail and vivid, unforgettable characters, The Courtier's Secret takes readers into a fascinating, intriguing world of pageantry, adventure, betrayals, and secrets.

Reading Group Guide Inside

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #823932 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780758226914
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Kicked out of the convent at seventeen, Jeanne Du Bois, the heroine of Morin's uneven historical, returns to Louis XIV's court only to rebel against her father's plans to marry her off to a fop. With training and a false moustache provided by a sympathetic uncle, Jeanne disguises herself as Jean-Luc, a gifted swordsman who fights alongside musketeers Henri and Antoine. She leads a tricky double life, particularly when, dressed as Jeanne, she wins Henri's heart and helps him uncover a threat to the queen. Morin fills her tale with maidens, mistresses and musketeers mired in intrigue, but her attempts to heighten dramatic intensity prove artificial: Jeanne's father is not only tyrannical, he's abusive; royal mistresses are not only conniving, they're murderous; and Jeanne's visit to a courtesan for advice seems particularly contrived. The novice novelist makes up for such simplistic technique by supplying lots of action, as Jeanne goes through quick costume changes, one minute a voluptuous virgin about to be raped, another a daring do-gooder, rapier in hand. (Feb.)
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Review
"Compelling. . .brings vividly to life the constrained life of the noble Frenchwoman." ----Allie Bates, author of Earthchild

"Exquisitely done. . .fabulous. . .unforgettable characters." ----Marilyn Rondeau

Customer Reviews

engaging seventeenth century Musketeer romance
When Jeanne Du Bois turned seventeen, the convent where she lived for a decade kicked her out due to a lack of payments by her odious dad. She goes to the court of the Louis XIV in Versailles, where her family is in attendance as part of the Sun King's retinue. Her abusive father Gaston decides to marry her off to some pathetic noble over the objection of his wife Adelaide whom he considers a womb-loser; however her Uncle Jules encourages her to be all that she can be. He gives her fencing lessons, male garb and a mustache. Ergo Jean-Luc is born.

Jean Luc joins the musketeers as a loyal comrade to Henri and Antoine. Meanwhile Jeanne falls in love with her brother in arms Henri; he reciprocates though remains ignorant that Jeanne is Jean. As Jean-Luc turned to Uncle Jules, Jeanne turns to courtesan Madam de L'Enclos for advice with men. However, as she struggles with both identities, she learns of a plot to assassinate Queen Marie-Therese. The three musketeers vow to save their queen even at risk to their lives.

The spins to this engaging seventeenth century Musketeer romance are the gender bending Jeanne and the fact most of the support cast including the heroine's father are nasty hedonistic sociopaths although there are those who are kind to Jeanne like her uncle and courtesan. The story line is fast-paced from the moment Uncle Jules trains his niece and never slows down as Jeanne falls in love when she was a young man.

Harriet Klausner

Good story, poor editing
Is it so bad for me to want to see books produced in a professional manner? The most glaring error in this book is that Louis XIV's final mistress (and secret wife) Francoise d'Aubigny or d'Aubigne, is misspelled as Francois throughout much of the book (which is the male version of the name). Here and there it is correctly spelled, but about 2/3 of the time she is referred to in casual conversation as "Francois." Distressing.

There are also a number of typos ('mecri' rather than 'merci,' for example) and at least one big fat grammatical error. "Largely ignored by his own mother, this woman [Louis' old nurse] had given the young Louis some of the only tenderness he had known as a child." When you have an intro to a sentence like this, it's supposed to describe the person immediately following the comma...which means that this sentence reads as if the old nurse had been ignored by Louis' mother. Which is not, obviously, the point the author is trying to make.

Yeah, I'm a nitpicker! I hate this stuff. But this is the fault of the proofreaders and editors. The story is engaging, pretty short (about a 1.5 hour read), and it doesn't have too much sex in it. Louis XIV is (thankfully) portrayed as a real man rather than a despot figurehead. I enjoyed reading about Jeanne's distress at the way of life that women were supposed to lead, and how she got around it.

The only real flaw in the writing is that at the beginning of the book, the prose is extremely flowery (more so than you would expect, even in a period piece). This settles down after a few chapters, although there are still overdone sentences here and there that sound like a 10th-grader's attempt at literary sophistication. I can't find the one that irritated me the most, but it was something very prosaic - putting a spoon into a filled cup, for example - and it was described something like this: "The metallic glint of the implement vanished as it became immersed in the vessel of foaming liquid on the scarred table before her." This is just too much frippery to describe putting a spoon in a cup.

Somehow when Edith Wharton wrote like this, it sounded good. Nowadays, not so much. A good vacation read, a good library read.

Solid read. The author has great potential and I eagerly await her next book.
The Courtier's Secret by Donna Russo Morin
Historical Romance Feb 1st, 2009
3 stars

The Courtier's Secret by Donna Russo Morin is a historical romance that is set in France 1862 at the court of the Sun King, Louis the XIV. The heroine, a plucky young lady who secretly learns the art of fencing and is renowned for her misbehaviors. She disguises herself as man and aids the Musketeers in uncovering an assassination plot against the Queen. Of course, as it is expected, she falls in love with one of the Musketeers but can never hope to marry a man of her own choosing. To complicate matters, her abusive father plans to marry her off to an aristocrat in order for further his standing in court.

This book is a pretty solid read. There are a lot of things going for it. First, the setting is very, very rich. The author has chosen a great period of history to set her story in. There is so much rich material to draw upon and Morin makes great use of the time period. She creates a vivid, realistic picture of court life and the limitations of women at that time. From tiny little details such as the number of bathrooms there are in the Versailles to the rich description of the King's daily toilette, the whole book starts to sag at the end under the weight of so much historical research. The author definitely did her homework, and I loved reading about France at that time, but in the end, it started getting a little bit too much.

The novel started out very promising but the plot developed some major problems for me. I loved how Morin set the stage: girl fresh from the convent, abusive father and loving, victimized mother, gender bending, disguise, mystery. I was eager to see how the heroine will solve her dilemma. Will the dashing hero discover her hidden identity? How is she going to get out of the planned marriage? Will they ever get together? In the end however, I was disappointed. It was very good to start with but around the middle it started to slow down. The author started to focus less on the heroine's double life and more on the forbidden courtship between the hero and heroine. It was a total and abrupt shift in the plot. The author also introduced us to the heroine's two girlfriends, whose stories were so engrossing that I became more interested in their sub-plot stories rather that the heroine's story.

To be fair, this is Morin's debut novel and for a first book, it's pretty darn good compared to a lot of other poorly written romance novels out there. Overall, this is a solid read if you are interested in the French history. The author has great potential and I eagerly await her next book.

Reviewed by Pauline from the Bookaholics Romance Book Club