Customer Reviews

The Courtier's Secret

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When Jeanne Du Bois turned seventeen, the convent where she lived for a decade kicked her out due to a lack of payments by her odious dad. She goes to the court of the Louis XIV in Versailles, where her family is in attendance as part of the Sun King's retinue. Her abusive father Gaston decides to marry her off to some pathetic noble over the objection of his wife Adelaide whom he considers a womb-loser; however her Uncle Jules encourages her to be all that she can be. He gives her fencing lessons, male garb and a mustache. Ergo Jean-Luc is born.

Jean Luc joins the musketeers as a loyal comrade to Henri and Antoine. Meanwhile Jeanne falls in love with her brother in arms Henri; he reciprocates though remains ignorant that Jeanne is Jean. As Jean-Luc turned to Uncle Jules, Jeanne turns to courtesan Madam de L'Enclos for advice with men. However, as she struggles with both identities, she learns of a plot to assassinate Queen Marie-Therese. The three musketeers vow to save their queen even at risk to their lives.

The spins to this engaging seventeenth century Musketeer romance are the gender bending Jeanne and the fact most of the support cast including the heroine's father are nasty hedonistic sociopaths although there are those who are kind to Jeanne like her uncle and courtesan. The story line is fast-paced from the moment Uncle Jules trains his niece and never slows down as Jeanne falls in love when she was a young man.

Harriet Klausner

I thoroughly enjoyed this book when I read it just after it was released. At that point it seemed every other author was writing something on the Tudors and beating the subject to death. I found this book on the "new fiction" table and the synopsis on the back convinced me to buy it. Finally I found something that not only deviated from the Tudors era, but it also left England and went to France. I enjoyed being able to get a point of view of the French from French characters and the characters themselves were very enjoyable. I thought this book was a good solid debut.

Jeanne Mas du Bois is a young courtier in the court of King Louis XIV of France. Her entire family lives in the castle at Versailles along with thousands of other courtiers vying for the eye of the king. Jeanne, however, is very different from any ordinary courtier. Her brightest wish is to be a musketeer and join Louis' forces. Her most acute disinterest is climbing the social courtier ladder. Not that Jeanne isn't a lady, she just doesn't find satisfaction in napkin-folding and watching the king's gluttony at dinner. Her uncle secretly teaches her the sport of fencing down in the labyrinthine bowels of the castle. It's during one of these lessons that Jeanne and her uncle advantageously save a pack of musketeers from some ruffians bent on queen-murdering mischief. Because Jeanne is wearing a helmet covering her face, she is mistaken for a man and invited by the musketeers to one of their exclusive dinner parties. Not wishing to pass up on the extraordinary, albeit ludicrously insane, opportunity, she convinces her uncle to help her find man clothes and some hair for a mustache. Enter Jean-Luc. To put a cog in her cross-dressing wheel, Jeanne falls in love with one of the musketeers that "Jean-Luc" has befriended. Jeanne is able to meet this musketeer, Henri, as herself and he instantly falls in love with her. Unfortunately, Jeanne's abusive father has promised her to a pallid cold-fish of a man named Polignac. As Jean-Luc, she helps the musketeers save the queen from murder. As Jeanne, she fights for her personal freedom from her father and court life and to marry the man she loves.

The Courtier's Secret has a great amount of historical facts thrown about throughout the narrative which gives the story more detail and credibility. The reader can tell when a bit of true history is being related. The random French words peppered in the dialogue gets old and is somewhat distracting. It's as though the author learned a few basic French words and threw them in at each chance she could instead of tastefully accenting the character's conversations. Also, the reader beware of a plethora of long French names.

Overall, The Courtier's Secret is an entertaining story and not to be overlooked as another generic, non-action love story. Be en garde for the ending as it will certainly take you by surprise with the demise of one very influential character.

an excellent read if u enjoy good period pieces with detailed historical stories woven into the plot. There are several amazing surprises regarding who is the good guy, who's the bad and the author keeps you on your toes.

The Courtier's Secret by Donna Russo Morin
Historical Romance Feb 1st, 2009
3 stars

The Courtier's Secret by Donna Russo Morin is a historical romance that is set in France 1862 at the court of the Sun King, Louis the XIV. The heroine, a plucky young lady who secretly learns the art of fencing and is renowned for her misbehaviors. She disguises herself as man and aids the Musketeers in uncovering an assassination plot against the Queen. Of course, as it is expected, she falls in love with one of the Musketeers but can never hope to marry a man of her own choosing. To complicate matters, her abusive father plans to marry her off to an aristocrat in order for further his standing in court.

This book is a pretty solid read. There are a lot of things going for it. First, the setting is very, very rich. The author has chosen a great period of history to set her story in. There is so much rich material to draw upon and Morin makes great use of the time period. She creates a vivid, realistic picture of court life and the limitations of women at that time. From tiny little details such as the number of bathrooms there are in the Versailles to the rich description of the King's daily toilette, the whole book starts to sag at the end under the weight of so much historical research. The author definitely did her homework, and I loved reading about France at that time, but in the end, it started getting a little bit too much.

The novel started out very promising but the plot developed some major problems for me. I loved how Morin set the stage: girl fresh from the convent, abusive father and loving, victimized mother, gender bending, disguise, mystery. I was eager to see how the heroine will solve her dilemma. Will the dashing hero discover her hidden identity? How is she going to get out of the planned marriage? Will they ever get together? In the end however, I was disappointed. It was very good to start with but around the middle it started to slow down. The author started to focus less on the heroine's double life and more on the forbidden courtship between the hero and heroine. It was a total and abrupt shift in the plot. The author also introduced us to the heroine's two girlfriends, whose stories were so engrossing that I became more interested in their sub-plot stories rather that the heroine's story.

To be fair, this is Morin's debut novel and for a first book, it's pretty darn good compared to a lot of other poorly written romance novels out there. Overall, this is a solid read if you are interested in the French history. The author has great potential and I eagerly await her next book.

Reviewed by Pauline from the Bookaholics Romance Book Club

I am an avid reader but this was my first historical novel. I couldn't wait to find out the ending! I disagree with the other reviewers; the minute details made the book! It showed how much research Russo Morin must have done and I believe she took fencing lessons as well. That shows dedication to her work.

I thoroughly enjoyed the characters and actually wished we had seen more of Uncle Jules. The story flowed right along and was full of suspense. I'm glad it wasn't a bodice ripping romance novel. However, it did have plenty of steamy scenes with Henri.

I think Russo Morin has a bright future and I look forward to getting to know her future characters.

Seventeen year old Jeanne du Bois returns from the convent where she's been schooled the last seven years and joins her family at Versailles. Much to her father's disapproval Jeanne is too independent and unladylike, and unbeknownst to him she resumes fencing lessons with her uncle Jules. After one of these lessons, Jules and Jeanne (who is dressed in men's clothes), come across two of the King's Musketeers under attack and save the day when they join in the battle. Not willing to reveal her identity as a women Jeanne is introduced as Jean Luc and as she wishes to join the Musketeers later she convinces her uncle to help her dress as a man. As Jeanne's abusive father plots to marry her off to an odious Baron, she finds herself drawn to Henri, one of the Musketeers - who during a fete at Versailles meets Jeanne and he is instantly smitten. A plot to kill the Queen is revealed and Jeanne/Jean finds both identities in the thick of things while she tries to balance the two and avoid being exposed.

So why am I giving this one only two stars? For starters, Jeanne is just way over the top in her independence - let alone the ditzy way she came across in the first two chapters (argh, those curls always coming lose from her coiffure!!) and I was beginning to think I was in for Gidget does Versailles. I threw the book across the room at Chapter two, but picked it up again and things did improve. Jeanne's ditzyness was toned down a bit, but as hard as the author tried to keep things realistic they just didn't always ring true. Hiding her dress and under things underneath the stinking privy cover and they didn't pick up any odor from it? She's able to get her men's boots off by herself, let alone dress herself and do her hair just in time to run to chapel? Then there was the garden party where she/he had to run and change clothes at least once and run back to present her/him back again at the party - again she can get those big old boots off and on all by herself.

Last complaint and again I appreciate the author taking the time and effort to pack plenty of history in her romance (and with a nod to M. Dumas, père), but it was all just a tad bit too heavy handed and I was beginning to feel like I was being clubbed over the head with it. In the end, it was a reasonably entertaining piece of fluff, nice to have a romance set somewhere else besides the Regency period but I do want to warn potential readers, according to the author's notes at the end she wrote this as a historical novel and not a romance. So, despite appearances and the impression the cover gives, this is not a bouncy bodice ripping novel packed with sex and I suspect serious romance readers will be sorely disappointed, as will serious historical fiction readers - for those I'd recommend just sticking with Dumas and read his Musketeer series.

Is it so bad for me to want to see books produced in a professional manner? The most glaring error in this book is that Louis XIV's final mistress (and secret wife) Francoise d'Aubigny or d'Aubigne, is misspelled as Francois throughout much of the book (which is the male version of the name). Here and there it is correctly spelled, but about 2/3 of the time she is referred to in casual conversation as "Francois." Distressing.

There are also a number of typos ('mecri' rather than 'merci,' for example) and at least one big fat grammatical error. "Largely ignored by his own mother, this woman [Louis' old nurse] had given the young Louis some of the only tenderness he had known as a child." When you have an intro to a sentence like this, it's supposed to describe the person immediately following the comma...which means that this sentence reads as if the old nurse had been ignored by Louis' mother. Which is not, obviously, the point the author is trying to make.

Yeah, I'm a nitpicker! I hate this stuff. But this is the fault of the proofreaders and editors. The story is engaging, pretty short (about a 1.5 hour read), and it doesn't have too much sex in it. Louis XIV is (thankfully) portrayed as a real man rather than a despot figurehead. I enjoyed reading about Jeanne's distress at the way of life that women were supposed to lead, and how she got around it.

The only real flaw in the writing is that at the beginning of the book, the prose is extremely flowery (more so than you would expect, even in a period piece). This settles down after a few chapters, although there are still overdone sentences here and there that sound like a 10th-grader's attempt at literary sophistication. I can't find the one that irritated me the most, but it was something very prosaic - putting a spoon into a filled cup, for example - and it was described something like this: "The metallic glint of the implement vanished as it became immersed in the vessel of foaming liquid on the scarred table before her." This is just too much frippery to describe putting a spoon in a cup.

Somehow when Edith Wharton wrote like this, it sounded good. Nowadays, not so much. A good vacation read, a good library read.

Most of my frustrations with the Romance genre these days are the writers who know nothing of the time period and just place a few details here and there. These writers also use colloquial language throughout their books despite being historicals. 'TheCourtier's Secret' on the other hand mows you down with so much historical information that I was bored to tears. I felt I was back in college history class with cramped fingers as I scribbled as much of the lecture as I could in my notes. Ugh. There are pages and pages of boring detailed descriptions of room after room of the palace in Versailles. Yawn. There are descriptions of the clothes, food, practices, royal schedule and manners. I could go on and on....and Morin did! Our intripid heroine is young, immature, and actually doesn't fit the time period. She is horrified and confused by her father's efforts to contract her marriage to another nobleman. Huh? Every single romance reader knows that a woman in the English or French upper classes was raised from the time of the cradle with those expectations. So the plot starts with an incorrect premise and goes downhill from there. There was very little to appreciate in this novel. I don't understand the other reviews. Did they read the same book I did? 'The Courtier's Secret' is weak in plot, but overloaded in unimportant detail. Think twice before spending money on this one.

Sent home from the convent the rebellious young Jeanne Yvette Mas Du Bois found the useless life in the court of King Louis XIV to be repugnant. Jeanne's father despised her independent and rebellious nature. Jeanne's greatest desire had been to become a Musketeer. Her beloved uncle Jules, one of the king's fencing partners, was teaching her to fence in the labyrinth of the castle where her natural fencing abilities were honed to a fine edge. While practicing with her uncle, a commotion outside their door drew their attention. Discovering two Musketeers outnumbered by masked assailants Jeanne jumped into the fray and saved the life of Henri Boucher D'Aubigne. Still masked Jeanne accepted the thanks of Henri who admired Jean Luc's (a hastily made up name) fighting ability and invited `him' to become his protégé. Knowing that this would be an opportunity to "live" before her despicable father completed his plans to marry her off to a simpering sycophant, Jeanne disguised herself as a man and grasped the opportunity. Though she could disguise her appearance to look and fight like a man, Jeanne had more trouble hiding her growing love for Henri as treachery and danger swirled about them.

*** This debut novel by Donna Russo Morin is one of the most exciting and exquisitely penned pieces of genuine historical romance I've read in a long time. Impeccably researched one can easily become immersed in the hedonistic and promiscuous lifestyle that abounded in Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV. Ms. Russo-Morin's prose and detailed research is pure brilliance and can easily be compared to the some of the first ladies of the genre including the late Kathleen Woodiwess and Virginia Henley. One can only applaud Russo Morin for making this story exciting, adventuresome and romantic without using explicit sexual scenes between the two leads.

The heroine Jeanne was portrayed as an absolutely marvelous character and her rebelliousness came through remarkably well without her being seen as an obnoxious brat. Rather, Jeanne was portrayed kindly, loving and compassionate to her two best friends while showing extreme strength when standing up to her hateful and cruel father.

The secondary characters, real and fictionalized were blended in perfectly with the story letting the reader see the beauty and pageantry at the court of Versailles, right along with the pettiness, gluttony, waste and ruthlessness of those jostling for position to the King. The details of that period were absolute eye-openers and for me, thoroughly enjoyable.

Bottom line - This is in my mind an elegantly drawn story of fact and fiction sure to please the most discriminating lovers of historical romance.

Marilyn Rondeau, Official Reviewer for www.ck2skwipsandkritigues.com