New Books In Historical Fiction

Paris, 1676. At the house of the fortuneteller Catherine Montvoisin (La Voisin), while two hooded forms watch, a wayward priest burns a piece of parchment in a spell designed to awaken the passions of Louis XIV of France. Three years later, those performing the ceremony become the target of a police investigation into the so-called Affair of the Poisons. Through interrogation, strategic imprisonment, and selective executions, the police gradually close in on La Voisin. But because of confessions exacted through torture, the widening scandal sweeps up more than four hundred suspects, including some of France’s most prestigious aristocrats. When a zealous young officer goes after La Voisin’s daughter and threatens to implicate Louis XIV’s official mistress, the marquise de Montespan, the police chief gets cold feet. But the young officer remains determined to bring those he considers guilty to justice, until in the end only the intervention of the Sun King himself can sort things out. In Charl