AustLit

'The eighteenth century witnessed a number of momentous happenings – the birth of the British Empire, the American War of Independence, the French Revolution – and the horrific ‘reign of terror’ that followed in its wake. In England, there were not only disasters and scandals like the South Sea Bubble, but also many important developments such as the establishment of a number of world famous institutions – The Royal College of Surgeons, the Jockey Club and the Royal Academy.

'The Quetteville Diaries, the first book of the Anjou Trilogy, takes the reader into the very centre of these exciting events. Set in the heart of London – St James’s – in one of its most famous high class brothels, are the Prime Minister, the dallying Duke of Grafton, the notorious John Wilkes and the profligate monks of Medmenham. They are all there – King George III, William Pitt, John Harrison – as he defies the odds and solves the Longitude problem – and the upstart rake, Dennis O’Kelly – as he writes his name into history with Britain’s greatest racehorse, Eclipse.

'This is a fascinating story – it is an exciting romance and it is history brought to life – and it will leave the reader wanting to know what happens to the Comtesse Nicole and the Scott-Quetteville family as Europe and America move forward into the nineteenth century.' (Publication summary)

'In the second book of Anjou Trilogy, the reader shares the exciting and sometimes bizarre events – and people – of the last decades of the eighteenth century. The British Prime Minister, the Duke of Grafton, is spending more time at the races at Newmarket and in the arms of his mistress than he is in attending to important matters of State. The conflict between Britain and the American colonies leads to the war for independence. In France, the young Marie-Antoinette is having a humiliating seven years of unconsummated marriage with the sexually inadequate Louis XVI – and the teen-aged Corsican, Buonaparte, graduates from l’École Militaire in Paris.

'On the other side of the Rhine, in the squalid Frankfurt ghetto, the soon to be famous Jewish coin dealer, Mayer Rothschild and his family are eking out a miserable existence in a city of rampant racial discrimination. And back in Paris, having been found guilty of the theft of the fabulously valuable ‘Queen’s Necklace’, the scheming Countess Jeanne Lamotte Valois is publicly stripped naked, whipped and branded. The book ends with the storming of the Bastille and the onset of the ‘Reign of Terror’ that followed in its wake.' (Publication summary)

'Noblesse Oblige, the third book of the exciting Anjou Trilogy, continues from where The Countess of Anjou ended – in the thick of France’s bloody Revolution. It goes with the countess’s son, François, as he sails with Captain Arthur Phillip and more than 700 convicts to the new penal colony in New South Wales, and then it continues with the totally unknown Captain Bonaparte, as he ousts the British fleet from Toulon. It then goes with Napoléon to Paris where he marries the voluptuous Comtesse Rose Beauharnais (Josephine) with whom he has a frustrating one-night honeymoon, the highlight of which was when he was bitten by the bride’s dog, Fortuné, who insisted on sharing the newlyweds’ marriage bed.

'During this time the Countess of Anjou is working with the French Government to restore Lyon’s international silk trade and is snatching condemned nobles from the arms of Madame Guillotine. In England her sons are continuing their quest to build the world’s first ocean-going steamship while, in Frankfurt, the Rothschilds are emerging as successful bankers.

'At the turn of the century Napoléon returns to Paris to become, first, First Consul and then Emperor. He invites hundreds of guests to his coronation in Notre Dame Cathedral where they eat sausage rolls during their six-hour wait for the emperor and his wife to arrive. The climax of the ceremony is reached when Napoléon upstages Pope Pius VII – and his eighteen cardinals and bishops – by snatching the crown from the altar and crowning himself Napoléon I, Emperor of France.

'Within a few months he begins his triumphant military campaign through Europe as he occupies almost all its big cities – and spends his nights in the beds of a succession of young beauties. This campaign is followed by his divorce from Josephine, his unsuccessful invasion of Russia – and his humiliating retreat back to France.

'The story ends with his imprisonment on the Isle of Elba, his escape back to France, his glorious 100 days and his nemesis on the rain-drenched – and blood-soaked – battlefield at Waterloo.' (Publication summary)