Fluer-de-lis

Publisher: Macmillan. 

ISBN 0-7329-1127-3

Now available. 

France 1793. After the dispersal of her family in the bloody upheaval of the French revolution, Fleur de Montbulliou, a beautiful young aristocrat, is forced into hiding. While she is living a hand-to-mouth existence in the countryside, her chance encounter with a mysterious stranger results in a marriage proposal.

Determined to survive, Fleur weds a dying man she hardly knows and assumes a new identity as the widow of Matthieu Bosanquet, a prosperous merchant from the city. And so she is swept into the very heart of Paris, a place as treacherous as it is exciting. As the widow Bosanquet and in a further disguise as the provocative actress La Coquette, she is adored and feted by the deputies of the Revolution, and plays a hazardous game of double deception. In the shadow of the guillotine, she must outwit one particular man – the cool, intelligent deputy Raoul de Villaret.

As political unrest plunges Paris yet more deeply into chaos, Fleur will be forced to take ever greater risks. In a glittering, dangerous world where anything might happen, can love survive?

The last time I read an Isolde Martyn book in preparation for an interview, I was so swept away by it that I forgot to make notes. I have to admit the same thing happened with her latest book Fleur-De-Lis. Once again, Isolde has provided us with a rollicking tale of danger, politics, adventure and romance -- only this time it's in the middle of the French Revolution at the height of the Terror, instead of the medieval period.

Isolde, what first gave you the idea for this book?

I've always been fascinated about the French revolution, the pressures people were under and why things went pear-shaped. I've also taught the FR at university and written courses on it for adult extension classes. When the Berlin wall came down, it was a moment of great hope for the world. I think the same thing happened when the Bastille fell, but the problem was people wanted things to get improve immediately.

Why did you decide to move out of the medieval period?

For the challenge. Recreating what it was like to live in Paris at the time was a huge learning exercise, not just a different era but another culture.

The French Revolution is not a common setting for a romance -- what appealed to you about setting a novel in that time and place?

I wanted to explore what would happen if a revolutionary and an aristocrat fell in love and I wanted to do it without the revolutionary clichés like Robespierre's reign of terror. Everything is against Fleur and Raoul but they manage to survive.  I wanted to convey that extra edge to everyday living: the desperation to live for the moment just as lovers did in WWII. My hero is very political (yes, breaking the rules again) and he moves from putting the revolution first to seeing that Fleur is more important than anything else. His idealism fades as he realises that the democratic France he was willing to die for is not going to happen. 

I must admit, I was a bit nervous that there would be a lot of gory stuff, but there wasn't at all. You've managed to convey the drama, the instability of the times and the danger, without dwelling on the gruesome.

No, no scaffolds. Guaranteed 100% guillotine free.

You are renowned for the quality of your historical research -- what are some of the things you did to research this book.

I visited Caen in Normandy where the story begins and walked and walked in Paris, getting a feel of the distances. I also read Robert Louis Stevenson's book about travelling with a donkey in France, talked to the Australian reptile park about pythons and devoured  tons of books on social life --if they didn't eat cake, what did they eat!Going up in a hot air balloon was the high light of the research.

The device of having Fleur inherit a theatre in Paris in the time of the Terror, was inspirational and gave another layer to the plot -- what gave you the idea?

There was so much entertainment still going on and chefs who had been put out of work by the fall of the aristocrats started opening up restaurants all over Paris.

You also manage to interweave real historical characters with your fictional characters. What are the benefits and drawbacks of that?

The benefits are that real historical characters add authenticity and extra depth.  The reader can be saddened by the fall of a great man or a revolution that goes wrong and yet walk away with a feel-good sensation because the fictional hero and heroine have survived. The drawbacks are getting the chronology and location right. I use some of the real people's experiences. The public prosecutor Fouquier Tinville did inadvertently help a young woman escape from prison, and Herault de Seychelles kept a coach waiting while he wrote to his mistress just like my hero did. There was a lot of information about Charlotte Corday, which made it easy to portray her a well-rounded character.

You've done a marvellous job with it. It's gripping reading and the love story of Fleur and Raoul works beautifully. Thanks for making time for this brief interview, Isolde. I know you're flying to Germany tomorrow.

You're very welcome.

Isolde Martyn is a multi award-winning author. She won a RITA for her first book, and has twice won the Australian Romantic Book of the Year.  For on-line reviews of Fleur-De-Lis, visit http://www.boomerangbooks.com/reviews/fleur_de_lis.htm and http://www.memorabletv.com/bookreviews/fleurdelis.htm  Visit Isolde's website at http://www.isoldemartyn.com/