Enchantée

Camille hated magic, but it was all she had.

When I started writing Enchantée, I knew I would draw on the time I’d lived in Paris to create the most immersive experience I could for my readers. I wanted them to feel as if they were stepping into the past … playing cards with the scheming courtiers at Versailles, soaring over the city in a hot-air balloon, sitting down to a whispered tête-à-tête with Marie Antoinette, and getting caught up in the revolutionary fervor of 1789. Then I added the thread of Camille’s darkly gleaming magic, because at its heart, this is a story about transformation and what we have the possibility of becoming.

Determined not to end up on the gritty streets of eighteenth-century Paris, impoverished orphan Camille Durbonne keeps herself and her younger sister alive by turning scraps of metal into coins, using a changeling magic fueled by her own sorrow. But when that isn’t enough to keep them safe, Camille turns to riskier spells to transform herself into an aristocrat and gamble at the court of Versailles. Aided by an ancestor’s enchanted dress, she strives to win this high-stakes game—but the court is more dangerous than she could have imagined, and she will need all her magic and more to survive as revolution erupts.

To all of you who dream, who want more from life, who are willing to use your magic to remake yourselves and rise: this book is for you.

Paris in 1789 is a labyrinth of twisted streets, filled with beggars, thieves, revolutionaries—and magicians...

When smallpox kills her parents, Camille Durbonne must find a way to provide for her frail, naive sister while managing her volatile brother. Relying on petty magic—la magie ordinaire—Camille painstakingly transforms scraps of metal into money to buy the food and medicine they need. But when the coins won’t hold their shape and her brother disappears with the family’s savings, Camille must pursue a richer, more dangerous mark: the glittering court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

With dark magic forbidden by her mother, Camille transforms herself into the ‘Baroness de la Fontaine’ and is swept up into life at the Palace of Versailles, where aristocrats both fear and hunger for la magie. There, she gambles at cards, desperate to have enough to keep herself and her sister safe. Yet the longer she stays at court, the more difficult it becomes to reconcile her resentment of the nobles with the enchantments of Versailles. And when she returns to Paris, Camille meets a handsome young balloonist—who dares her to hope that love and liberty may both be possible.

But la magie has its costs. And when Camille loses control of her secrets, the game she's playing turns deadly. Then revolution erupts, and she must choose—love or loyalty, democracy or aristocracy, freedom or magic—before Paris burns…