Title: Courting the Sun
Author: Peggy Joque Williams
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Length: 390 pages
Reviewed by Victoria Lynn Smith
In Amiens, France, in the spring of 1665, ten-year-old Sylvienne perches in a maple tree and gazes upon an elegant stone manor. Sylvienne and her widowed mother live a humble existence in the nearby groundskeeper’s cottage. She daydreams that one day a prince will rescue her and whisk her away to a luxurious life in a grand palace. She is lost in reverie, when ten-year-old Etienne, a shoemaker’s son, shouts up to her and asks what she is doing in a tree. Tense words are exchanged, but soon animosity becomes a steadfast friendship.
Five years later Etienne proposes to Sylvienne before he leaves on a business trip. She demurs but promises an answer upon his return. While Etienne is away, she decides she will marry him. However, before he returns, Sylvienne receives an exquisite blue gown along with an invitation from King Louis XIV. A recent chance meeting between the King and Sylvienne inspired him to invite Sylvienne, who has grown into a beautiful woman, to attend the royal court in Paris. Sylvienne, convinced her dreams are coming true, accepts the King’s summons, leaving her mother, her friends, and Etienne behind.
Court life both thrills and intimidates the young, naïve Sylvienne. After some initial missteps, she finds her footing, but intrigue, jealousy, and petty grievances still pounce at her heels as she strives to forge alliances and remain in good standing at court. She has powerful allies in her corner, but at the same time, her adversaries wish for her downfall. When she realizes her stay at court will be lengthier than she originally planned, her desire for Etienne grows, and she hopes to find a way to bring him to the King’s court. But Sylvienne’s desire for Etienne and the wishes of the King clash. Caught between the dream she once wanted and the future she now longs for, Sylvienne realizes her life is no longer her own, and she wonders if it ever will be again.
In her historical novel, Courting the Sun, author Peggy Joque Williams spins a well-written, fast-paced, thoroughly engaging story of love, honor, and duplicity. Readers will hold their breath as the royals, courtiers, mistresses, and ladies-in-waiting jostle for power in the court of King Louis XIV. Williams delivers a plot with rewarding twists and turns. I read her novel in two days because I had to know what happened next. I loved being surprised, but at the same time realizing, “Of course, it all makes sense now.”
Connoisseurs of historical fiction will appreciate Williams’s devoted research of King Louis XIV’s era. Her realistic characters, dynamic dialogue, and evocative settings animate the world of the King and his royal court, giving readers the chance to experience a great story set in a realistically rendered slice of history. As Sylvienne’s carriage enters Paris for the first time, readers smell the stench of the overcrowded city. They hear the deafening noise of never-ending construction in the growing city. They witness extreme poverty and outrageous wealth among the people who traverse the streets. Throughout her novel Williams brings seventeenth-century France to life for her readers.
William’s book has what every good historical novel should have – wonderful writing that firmly entrenches readers in another time and place, surprising but believable twists, and characters readers care about. But most importantly readers want to trust that the writer has done impeccable research, and on this point, Williams earns our trust.
