The Academie

by Susanne Dunlap

Overview

When Eliza Monroe - daughter of the future president of the United States - discovers that her mother is sending her to boarding school outside of Paris, she is devestated. But Eliza is quickly reconciled to the idea when she discovers who her fellow pupils will be: Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of Josephine Bonaparte; and Caroline Bonaparte, youngest sister of the famous French general. It doesn't take long for Eliza to figure out that the two French girls are mortal enemies - and that she's about to get caught in the middle of their schemes.

Loosely based on fact (the three girls really did attend finishing school at the same time), Eliza's coming of age provides a fascinating glimpse into the lives and histories, loves and hopes of three young women against the backdrop of one of the most volatile and exciting periods in French history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781599908199
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	04/10/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	12 Years

About the Author

Susanne Dunlap graduated from Smith College and later earned a PhD in music history from Yale University. She is the author of two historical novels for adults and three novels for teens: The Musician's Daughter, Anastasia's Secret, and In the Shadow of the Lamp. She divides her time between New York, and Massachusetts.

www.susannedunlap.com
Susanne Dunlap graduated from Smith College and later earned a PhD in music history from Yale University. She is the author of two historical novels for adults and three novels for teens: The Musician's Daughter, Anastasia's Secret, and In the Shadow of the Lamp.
www.susannedunlap.com

Editorial Reviews

This peculiar hybrid of fact-checked historical fiction and breathless bodice-ripper chronicles the romantic flings of four teens in 1799 France. Eliza Monroe, daughter of future U.S. president James Monroe, arrives at a Paris finishing school where she's befriended by fellow pupils Hortense de Beauharnais (daughter of Joséphine, stepdaughter of Napoleon Bonaparte) and Caroline Bonaparte (sister of Napoleon): beautiful, scheming frenemies. This promising, frothy-but-fun scenario is overshadowed by a less-successful melodrama. Madeleine de Pourtant, secretly engaged to Hortense's brother, is the daughter of Gloriande, a star of the Comédie Française. Formerly enslaved in Martinique, Gloriande--drug-addicted, abusive, mentally unstable, a sexual omnivore discarded by her white aristocratic husband--resurrects the toxic "tragic mulatto" stereotype, as does Madeleine herself. The plot veers unsteadily from accounts of student entertainments, girlish crushes and romantic intrigues to Gloriande's depraved brutality and Madeleine's misery. Throughout, narrators Hortense, Eliza and Madeleine keep the emotional temperature constant, reacting to overheard gossip, the discovery of admirers and General Bonaparte's power plays with the same feverish excitement. Dunlap has clearly done her history homework, but characterization is sketchy and the noisy plot not always credible. Annemarie Selinko's classic historical romance Désirée (1953) offers what's missing: compelling characters who made, and were made by, the world they lived in. Pass. (Historical romance. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews