July 16, 2018
In a historical novel set in 1798, Gulland (the Josephine B. series) follows the life of 15-year-old Hortense Beauharnais four years after the end of the French Revolution. Hortense is wrestling with nightmares about her father, who was guillotined during the Reign of Terror. She lives at the Institute, a boarding school for the aristocracy run by Maîtresse Campan, with her best friend, Mouse, and her older cousin Emilie. Hortense has mixed feelings about her mother’s recent marriage to Gen. Napoleon Bonaparte, and she dreams of a romance with Christophe, her brother’s fellow officer, who is with the military in Egypt. Numerous other characters filter in and out of the story, including Eliza, daughter of American ambassador James Monroe, and Hyacinthe Jadin, a young pianist and composer who inspires Hortense, but all of the characters are paper-thin. The story is divided into chapters named for a set of fortune-telling cards, but this does little to structure the meandering plot. Gulland’s novel is meticulously packed with historical details, though, and these help to create a convincing portrayal of the suffocating and insecure circumstances that an aristocrat of the time might have experienced. Included are a glossary, a map, and additional historical information. Ages 12–up.