Enchantée ~ Gita Trelease

Genre: Young Adult/Historical Fantasy

Publisher: Flatiron Books

ISBN: 9781250295521

464 pages

Source: Barnes and Noble

I’m not sure if I’ve simply read too many books about people in desperate situations or what but the beginning of this book stressed me out.

The first act opens on three siblings: seventeen year old Camille, her fourteen year old sister, Sophie, and their ridiculous excuse for an older brother, Alain. It is the Paris of 1789 and if you know your stuff, you know that’s a dangerous moment for basically everyone.

The siblings’ parents have been taken by smallpox, but not before their father was caught up in printing and distributing revolutionary fliers. That same sentiment runs like the inevitable blood through the streets, the nobility all the while playing a fantastic game of dodge and denial.

They are determined to survive, using Camille’s cheap, inherited magic to turn scrap metal into coins but that magic begins to fade, just as Alain’s drinking and gambling addictions lead him to run away with the meager savings they have left.

The only thing the remaining sisters have left is a darker form of magic, gifted to Camille by their mother who was a magician herself. With nothing but determination and magic to piece herself together, she heads for Versailles, dead set on winding her way in to court as her only means of saving her sister and herself.

I promise that this is not every single other “Down and our girl makes it big with a disguise” story. It’s rich with history, so much so that I could hear Les Miserables and the sound track from Marie Antoinette in my head, the whole way through. The backdrop also sang of revolutionary action a little closer to home, as a few characters from the time period showed up, freshly back from post-war America. Good ol’ Marquis de “I’m taking this horse by the reins”…ahem, I mean, Lafayette makes an appearance, making the period price aspect that much richer.

I am really bummed that there does not appear to be a sequel to the book because I was quite, um, enchanted by the whole thing. I love when someone is able to totally nail historical fiction with a side of magic, and this one does just that.