As she grows even older her innocence and naivety are blended with a beauty of such richness and sensuality that men find her irresistible. Roaming the woods and fields around her father’s castle at Monteloup, Angélique has a wild and untamed spirit and, even at the age of eleven or twelve, is so beautiful as to have won devoted followers in the miller’s son Valentine and the peasant Nicolas. This first volume introduces us to our heroine, the tomboyish Angélique, middle daughter of an impoverished Poitevin nobleman. (It isn’t.)įirst published in 1957, by the husband-and-wife team of Serge and Anne Golon, The Marquise of the Angels is the opening instalment in a series that currently boasts thirteen novels in French, ten of which have been translated into English. My main aim, I suppose, is to warn others who might do as I did ad come to the book assuming that it’s similar to Dorothy Dunnett. I believe an ‘outsider’s’ opinion on this book might be valuable and, as ever, I’ve judged it again the same standard as I do all other novels I read. Nevertheless, I thought it was worth putting up a post (partly because I’m sure several of you will laugh to think of me reading this). I’m also now fully aware that it should be read from a historical romance perspective: not a field of which I have much experience.

I know now that this series has a cult status in France and I can see from various reviews (and comments below) that there are many people across the world who are passionately attached to it and its heroine, and who are distressed by those who fail to perceive its magic.

However I told myself not to worry too much: without the wooden acting, the soft focus and the bouffant hair, the book might be more palatable.īefore proceeding further, I have to make some disclaimers. Of course the cover has given my friends great amusement and Heloise was kind enough, between fits of laughter, to send me a link to a trailer for the 1964 film directed by Bernard Borderie. To cut a very long story short, the second volume in the series arrived instead of the first (and trust me, that cover is much worse than this) but by that point I’d committed myself, so I got hold of the first book just so I could say that I’d given it a go. Naturally such a comparison caught my attention and, despite slight misgivings, I went ahead and ordered it. I’d never heard of the series but reviews were glowing, promising wonderful characters and breathless adventure and one reviewer even suggested that readers looking for something similar should try the Lymond Chronicles. Angélique was recommended automatically, either by Goodreads or Amazon, with a considerably more innocuous cover.

Red Adam's Lady by Grace Ingram