The Shadow Queen

The daughter of actors, Claudette has been playing different roles since she was a child. After settling in Paris, where her mother becomes a star, Claudette finds a position as personal assistant to Athénaïs de Montespan, the highly influential mistress of Louis XIV, and France’s “Shadow Queen.” But amid the gilded opulence of the newly-constructed Versailles, she is shocked to discover that the Court’s veneer of respectability and glamour conceals just as many plots and deceptions as the stage.

As she is caught up in Athénaïs’s paranoia and desperation to keep the King’s attention, Claudette is forced to consider a move that will risk her own life—and that of the family she loves so dearly.