The Secret Diary of a Princess a novel of Marie Antoinette (41 page)

With many thanks to Dave, Felix and Oscar. Also much gratitude to everyone who encouraged me to get on and write this book, especially the readers of the original blog, who made superb cheerleaders as Maria Antonia’s story unfolded in often unexpected ways!
 

Also thanks to Emilie Autumn, whose music was the perfect score and inspiration for this work. I promised her a mention in the acknowledgements and here it is.

When I first started writing this book, it was my intention to focus on Marie Antoinette’s childhood, a period that I felt had been generally neglected by other writers when in fact it sheds a lot of light on the woman and Queen that she was eventually to become.
 

This is a work of fiction based on fact, which was sourced from a terrifying and enormous pile of books about the lives of Marie Antoinette, her family, her friends and the times that they lived in. I would recommend Antonia Fraser’s
Marie Antoinette: The Journey
, Joan Haslip’s
Marie Antoinette,
Evelyne Lever’s
Marie Antoinette:The Last Queen of France,
Caroline Weber’s
Queen of Fashion
and Ian Dunlop’s
Marie Antoinette
to anyone who wants to know more about this most glamorous, sweet natured and ill fated of Queens.

About the Author

Melanie Clegg is a pink haired art history graduate, casual historian, GIN taster, lapsed goth, failed Parisienne, Versailles obsessive, proud Ripperologist, Georgette Heyer fanatic and Victorian Prostitute re-enactor who lives in deepest darkest Bristol with her family but would rather be in either Whitechapel or Paris.

Meticulously researched and elegantly crafted,'The Secret Diary of a Princess' was her first novel and was born from a desire to tell the story of Marie Antoinette from an unusual and yet still fascinating angle, focusing on her early life at the Viennese court, the machinations behind her betrothal to the Dauphin Louis and then finally her initial impressions of her new home, Versailles. All told by Marie Antoinette herself as she grows from an enchanting, wilful child into a poised and beautiful young woman.

Melanie's second book, 'Blood Sisters', a sweeping and dramatic saga set during the turbulent years of the French Revolution, follows the fortunes of a trio of aristocratic sisters who are caught up in the Revolution while trying to discover the truth about their past.

Her third book, ‘Before the Storm’ is a re-imagining of Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers set in the
 
opulent and often treacherous worlds of Georgian London, Marie Antoinette’s Versailles and the bloodshed and terror of Revolutionary Paris. It’s been described as having ‘Lush, dreamy historical detail with a slightly punk rock aesthetic…’

Melanie is now working on three very different books - the sequel to The Secret Diary of a Princess, a
 
novel set in Whitechapel during the Ripper murders of 1888 and another about Henrietta Stuart, the favourite sister of Charles II and sister in law of Louis XIV.
 

You can find out more by visiting Melanie's popular art, history and writing blog at www.madameguillotine.org.uk.