This follows four generations of mothers and daughters from 1664 to 1793 and is set in Versailles through three reigns from the Sun King to Marie Antoinette, from the age of Lully and Moliere to that of Mozart and Voltaire to that of Robespierre.
It begins with the birth of Marguerite, the daughter of an artisan and a fan maker; she's named by a drunken musketeer who jokes he'll be back for her when she's seventeen. Her mother Jean takes the joke seriously though, and raises her daughter to expect a greater destiny than the poverty that's her legacy. About a third of the novel tells her story, of her rise through her own entrepreneurship and the patronage of a nobleman, giving us a portrait of the fabulous Versailles of Louis XIV, and his persecution of the Huguenots. We then turn to her daughter, Jasmin, a childhood playmate of Louis XV and a friend of Madame de Pompadour. Finally we follow her granddaughter, Rose, a loyal lady-in-waiting and confidant of the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette.
Laker writes a decent, flowing omniscient narrative, at times redolent of romance aisle, but I found the picture of French history leading to the Revolution and of the various heroines engrossing, and the last chapters dealing with the French Revolution quite suspenseful. If you're a fan of romantic historical fiction, this is an entertaining even if not an outstanding novel, a good, thoroughly enjoyable read.
