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Mistress of the Sun: A Novel, by Sandra Gulland
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The author of the internationally acclaimed Josephine Bonaparte trilogy returns with another irresistible historical novel, this one based on the life of Louise de la Vallière, who, against all odds, became one of the most mysterious consorts of France's Louis XIV, the charismatic Sun King.
Set against the magnificent decadence of the seventeenth-century French court, Mistress of the Sun begins when an eccentric young Louise falls in love with a wild white stallion and uses ancient magic to tame him. This one desperate action of her youth shadows her throughout her life, changing it in ways she could never imagine.
Unmarriageable, and too poor to join a convent, Louise enters the court of the Sun King, where the king is captivated by her. As their love unfolds, Louise bears Louis four children, is made a duchess, and reigns unrivaled as his official mistress until dangerous intrigue threatens her position at court and in Louis's heart.
A riveting love story with a captivating mystery at its heart, Mistress of the Sun illuminates both the power of true and perfect love and the rash actions we take to capture and tame it.
- Sales Rank: #978866 in Books
- Published on: 2009-04-07
- Released on: 2009-04-07
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x .90" w x 5.25" l, .75 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 400 pages
From Publishers Weekly
As she did for Napoleon's wife (The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.), Gulland skillfully blends fact and fiction to imagine the life of Louise de la Vallière (1644–1710), mistress to Louis XIV, France's Sun King. Louise loses her father early and spends her childhood in a convent run by her aunt, Sister Angelique. When Louise's mother, Françoise, marries a marquis, she takes Louise home, where, by chance, she meets King Louis. As she secures a position at court about 100 pages in, the plot finally begins to bubble with intrigue: the king has married for political reasons, but, as a young and pious man, he has not kept a mistress before Louise. Their secret love eventually comes to light, but not without exacting a price. A supernatural element threaded throughout adds color to Gulland's vivid period imaginings. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
In spirit, there was nothing diminutive about Louise de la Valliere, known to her family as “Petite.” A rambunctious girl who could tame the wildest stallion, the impoverished and unmarriageable Petite was also able to tame the heart of the legendary Sun King, Louis XIV. Once she had captured his eye, Petite was quickly ensconced in his court, where, as his mistress, she was elevated to a titled position. Such a meteoric rise was bound to attract attention of the wrong sort, and Petite’s life was filled with the terrors and tragedies that accompany all internecine tales of palace intrigue. Amid rumors of black magic and sorcery, loved ones would die, and Petite herself would ultimately arrive at a crossroads where she would be forced to choose between her loyalty to the king and her own personal salvation. Teeming with the rich period details that make historical fiction so rewarding, Gulland’s dynamic and nuanced portrait of Louis’ notorious reign thrums with page-turning expediency and deliciously seductive machinations. --Carol Haggas
Review
"[A] captivating jewel of a novel." -- Historical Novels Review, editors' choice
"Here's a warning: Mistress of the Sun is dangerously seductive. It's one of those books that will grab you and hold you captive till the last page is turned." -- Montreal Gazette
"Teeming with the rich period details that make historical fiction so rewarding, Gulland's dynamic and nuanced portrait of Louis's notorious reign thrums with page-turning expediency and deliciously seductive machinations." -- Booklist
"Suspenseful, evocative, atmospheric, and deliciously satisfying reading, with an immensely appealing heroine." -- Margaret George, author of Helen of Troy
"I fell in love with Petite from the moment she tamed her wild, white horse, and I galloped along with her through her undying devotion to one of France's most colorful kings." -- Anne Easter Smith, author of The King's Grace and A Rose for the Crown
"An irresistible story" -- Ottawa Citizen
"...this is a fine telling, bolstered by the strength and sensitivity of Gulland's characterizations." -- Kirkus Reviews
"This lively story is rich in period detail...Gulland successfully unfolds the story of Petite and Louis while smoothly weaving in other actual historical personages." -- Rocky Mountain News
Most helpful customer reviews
58 of 61 people found the following review helpful.
Sing Ye! Gulland's masterful new novel is a moving tale of a woman who got as close as one can to the Sun -but will she burn?
By Lilly Flora
In truth I thought never to see another novel by Sandra Gulland after her Josephine B. trilogy, because it was such a spectacular achievement both in writing and research (down to the footnotes which explained every little fact.)Since there was such a large publishing gap I had thought it was to be a life's achievement worthy of any great author. I was wrong.
"Mistress of the Sun", Gulland's new novel, is quite simply a work of literary brilliance. A novel filled with light. Centered on the life of Louise de Valliere, who arose from the lowest ranks of the country aristocracy to become the mistress of the Sun king, Louis XIV.
It is clear from the first chapter, when Louise (nicknamed Petite) at six years old tames a wild horse no one else can come near to her will that she is more than an ordinary girl. Precocious, graceful as a sawn and full of love and light she enchants her family. But the horse causes the death of her father it leaves her without speech or desire for anything and she sent into the care of a nunnery. However, because of her mothers second marriage Louise is denied the religious life she believes she wants and becomes instead a lady in waiting to the duc d'Orleans eldest daughter, who is believed to be the young king's intended. When plans for the marriage fall through and the duc dies; Louise does the rebuffed bride to be a service for which she is recommend for service in the palace to Henrietta, sister of the English king Charles II and wife to the new duc d'Orleans, the French king's brother.
It is here, in the glittering court were she will meet the King, a man she much admires but can never learn to reconcile with Louis, who she loves. Or their desire and passion with her religion.
And she soon discovers the King has needs the ordinary man would not have-emotions and desires that a simple man would learn to regulate. Eventually Louise finds her great love slipping away as the King emerges to her more and more and Louis less and less...but perhaps this transformation is helped along a little by means not natural? By a new rival who was once a great friend?
This is a novel of passion, god, fallacy, jealousy fears, grief, evil, and love in its many forms. It is the tale of an extraordinary love, and an extraordinary woman who gave her all for love but in the end discovered that passion can follow many different courses. And the little hint of mystery about it is just enough to make me want to start an extensive research project on the Sun King and his women.
Though unlike the Josephine B. series it is written in third person, Gulland loses none of her magical, sometimes fairy-tale style of writing in the change, nor any of her ability to cram in facts and oddities of the time without distracting from the story by any means. The little things you will learn in this novel will astound you about the time, as will the love story move you and Louise's dominating courage inspire.
I enjoyed this novel immensely and was hugely touched by the emotion that poured out of it. It is clear that Gulland was devoted to her subject and took her time to properly tell the story of this very special woman, who has far too often been categorized as just another royal mistress.
This is (for me) obviously a five star novel. I was unable to put it down once I picked it up and was even up a good portion of the night with it. I have high hopes for Sandra Gulland's next novel and owe her a debt of thanks for teaching me so much French history in such an enjoyable way!
(On a side note "Mistress of the Sun" also tells the tale of the making of the simple country château of Versaie into the great seat of France Versailles, though not in great detail. If you'd like to know more about that I refer you to "To Dance with Kings" by Rosalind Laker.)
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
Being the girlfriend of a king isn't easy.
By Rebecca Huston
It seems that tales about royal mistresses never seem to grow stale, at least in our world's literary market. In the few last years I've seen several books on such women as Nell Gwynn and Barbara Castlemaine, both mistresses of Charles II of England, the various mistresses of Louis XIV of France, and women in renaissance Italy.
Author Sandra Gulland has turned to one of the lesser known mistresses of Louis XIV, known as the Sun King, the monarch who created the palace of Versailles, and put his stamp on a place and time so vividly that no one ever really equalled him. His first official mistress was a young woman by the name of Louise de la Valliere, who is usually overlooked in favour of the king's far more flamboyant mistress, Athenais de Montespan.
When the novel opens, Louise -- known as Petite for her small stuature -- is a half-wild child on her family's small manor. She is particularly in tune with nature, and adores horses. Her father understands and indulges her, but her mother is determined to turn her into a fashionable -- and marriageable -- young lady. But Petite would much rather go and be outside, or be reading her father's collection of prized books.
The turning point comes when she at a horse fair with her father, and she sees not just skills of horsemanship, but a magnificent white stallion, unbroken and wild. Termed Diablo -- the Devil -- he allows no one near, but Petite is enchanted by him. She pleads with her father to buy the horse, and he relunctantly agrees. So begins Petite's foray into the world of adulthood, a rather rocky, and at times, unpleasant one.
For Diablo is nothing but trouble -- Petite, driven with a hunger to tame him, is tempted to use a dangerous spell called 'bone magic' to control him, and while it does succeed, it comes at a terrible price. We also get to see Petite's own desire for entering the religious life and becoming a nun, but her mother has very different plans for her.
When the opportunity comes to enter the household of the Duke d'Orleans household, Petite discovers that being a royal handmaiden and the lives of the aristocracy is quite different than she had expected. And when she mets a young huntsman, her life takes a drastic turn as she falls for the young king of France, Louis XIV.
I have to say, I was prepared to be disappointed with this one; I had read the author's previous series about the first wife of Napoleon, Josephine de Beauharnais, and found it to be not quite what I liked. This time, Sandra Gulland has sharpened her skills at creating narrative and imagry and created a young woman in Petite that is complicated, and satisfying to read about. True, at times, I felt that the heroine would bleed pure sugar if you cut her, but there's just enough there to make her come alive. By the end, I genuinely cared about Louise/Petite, and the extravagant life she was leading in the Sun King's court.
Nor does Gulland neglect the other characters in the novel. Louis XIV is a young king, still untried in many ways, but determined to tame the nobility of his country and rule by his will alone. Gulland brings a bit of humanity to him, and his ever wandering lust for women to life and does it with enough style to make him sympathetic. Especially when the tempetuous, dangerous Madame Athenais comes into view. Here too we get to see a seductive, deadly charm -- you might not like her very much, but you can't help but pay attention to her either. Other minor characters appear as well, from Clorine, Petite's maid, who is full of commonsense and not afraid of speaking her mind, to the equally horse-mad Abbe Patin, who becomes one of Petite's best friends and spiritual advisor. There are some interesting tidbits about the Affairs of the Poisons, the scandal that rocked France at the time, and where Petite gets to learn about true witchery.
I was pleased with this novel, as it is quick moving and compelling to read -- I had it finished within two nights. It's one that I happily recommend for those who enjoy historical novels, with plenty of details focused on the history and grandeur of the time, without going over the top with contrived romances. While there are a few blunders here and there, it's not bad at all, and easily earned a four star rating from me.
As well as the story itself, there is an author's note at the end, a map of France in the time of Louis XIV, and a genealogy chart showing the rather tangled relationships of the Bourbon Kings. The author recommends Antonia Fraser's excellent _Love and Louis XIV_ about the king's many affairs and relationships with women.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Splendid!
By Amazon Customer
A book on love, spirituality, mysticism, power and courage lived by Louise de Lavallière, known as, Petite, during an important chapter in Louis XIV's life; A great Love...
Right from the beginning, I immediately felt tenderness for the six-year old Petite; this child whose heart and mind races as quickly as the stallions she already knows how to tame and ride. Her passion for horses leads her to push the ways of the dark side in order to tame her `beloved' and wild, white stallion -Diablo. She truly believes this pact with the devil is what brings forth the inevitable course of her life.
It is purely by chance, that her fate leads her to meet the Sun King. In the fields that day, when she speaks to the tall, vibrant young man dressed in hunting gear... she doesn't realize who he really is. Later, while on duty, attending a young Princess at court, Petite sees the King. She recognizes him! King Louis spots her as well; she looks familiar...
Then, during a disastrous rain storm, fate brings them together once more. From that fleeting moment of tenderness, follows a strong resistance. Due to her virtuous morals, unwavering faith, regard and respect for the Queen, Petite renounces every attempt to succumb to the King. Alas, they are young, filled with passion and an irresistible longing to be together. Couple this with their common love of horses, hunting and riding, as well as, great friendship and interest in eachother- there is no escaping this powerful force... Petite surrenders. They are meant to live this love.
However, loving Louis and loving the King are two different things. Can Petite accept one without the other? The ways of Royalty are not all that glitters. There is much pain and sorrow. Can their love endure in a world filled with lies, deception, betrayals, masks and sorcery? Petite is deeply in love and totally devoted to Louis; yet extremely committed to her faith. A pure soul at heart, Petite constantly struggles to fight the evil battle.
In this beautiful historical novel, author Sandra Gulland, captures the true feeling of the times, whether it's in the fine points pertaining to the history, or the minute details of every day life at court for both royals and those who dared live alongside. History buffs will be amazed by the amount of interesting historical information that keeps you plugged to this book.
Birthing and illness remedies and methods, including love potions and magical concoctions believed to soothe (or destroy) both soul and body, are meticulously described. In addition, the dialog is extremely well-suited and completely realistic. For me, it's of particular importance for a novel to be written using the language feel and best possible form reflective of the period. Even the French expressions are intact; mirroring the times perfectly. Gulland succeeds through and through.
In addition, character depictions are solid and skillfully developed to bring out the needed emotions in order to completely detest or adore the targeted figure. I was also surprised by the chameleon effect of certain characters, bringing about a whole different element and aspect to the story; particularly where Athénaïs is involved, for example.
The concept of living a life through intricacies, complications and deceptions of sorts helps depict the deterioration of spirit, youth, beauty, and life in the Court of Louis XIV. Inevitably, people resort to various methods to control the invariables by means that are contrary to the teachings of the Church at the time. Holding on to Louis proves to be an even greater challenge than taming her beloved Diablo. Will Petite need to make a different pact? She alone must decide her fate.
What an intense love story! For me, Petite came through as angelic in her ways; a gentle and free spirit entangled in wrath. As for Louis XIV, he was larger than life; the Sun. ...an angel fighting for the sun- within so much darkness. Even the title reveals a deep and mystical meaning. Petite my have miraculously `survived' a true fairytale after all...`happily ever after'...
The story unravels magnificently. I was enraptured from beginning to end. Splendid!
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