The Disenchantment

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If you like,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell you a story to make the time pass faster. But you must stand perfectly still.’ We love historical lesbian romances, and The Disenchantment byCelia Bellsatiates our hunger for more. . . . The novel explores witchcraft,female scholars, and characters who defy traditional gender norms, giving us everything to appease our desire for historical feminist stories.” Lavoie had expected her to pinch the child’s ear to enforce the command. The most unruly and spoilt children, he found, often lived in fear of their mother. A nursemaid would allow them to gallop around the nursery and break their toys, but the lady of the house still expected them to be polite and presentable before her friends. ‘ Look how gallant he is,’ they might say of a little boy. ‘ Come now, darling, bow and kiss the comtesse’s hand!’ And if the child didn’t behave, he’d be slapped, to teach him manners. It wasn’t that Lavoie had never been slapped during the years of his apprenticeship, but the way these fine ladies lost their polished mannerisms the instant a child disobeyed unsettled him. The Disenchantment by Celia Bell is a radiant and thrilling debut that follows a passionate love affair between two noblewomen who wish to free themselves from their repressive society, whatever the cost. RELATED: Mary Catherine was a beautifully written character with a fierce love and determination. And this was a debut!!!!

The Epigraph Literary Festival is a free virtual celebration that introduces readers to authors with new and upcoming books and hosts reading and lifestyle-themed sessions. Join us for 3-days of literary fun and topple your reading list! The characters are fascinating and very strong, and I love that it is told solely through the perspectives of women. I really appreciate the author’s research, she included many details and characters either directly from or inspired by historical resources and literature from the period. It made for a very compelling, vivid and historically accurate read. A secret romance between two noblewomen in 1680s Paris is threatened by the Affair of the Poisons in this bewitching work of historical fiction. If he had been painting the portrait according to his own designs, and not according to custom, Lavoie would have liked to show the way the boy’s head tilted upwards to watch his mother speak, his mouth hanging slightly open, as if he could look through her face and into the scene that she was describing. Instead, he outlined his face half from memory, looking straight out from the canvas.

Of course not,’ he said. He returned the baronne’s smile only belatedly, and with a feeling approaching dread. Occasionally he painted some wrinkled Parisian lady with grandchildren who expected him to entertain her by flirting. The baronne was not in that category. If he offended her, her servants would throw him out onto the street and he’d lose his commission. She walked among the trees,’ Madame de Cardonnoy said, ‘until she came upon a path through the forest that had been carved by some creature’s enormous footsteps, and on the path were the bones and the rusted sword of a man who must also have tried, in his own way, to end the ogre’s reign.’ Baroness Marie Catherine lives a double life. At home, she is the wife and mother, doting on her two children, telling them beautiful stories and fairytales. Outside of her home, away from the watchful eye of her husband, she is living a very different life, full of freedoms and fun. She has fallen in love with another woman, Victoire Rose de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Conti and her eyes have opened to what love can really feel like.

When her husband is present, the Baroness spends her days tending to her children and telling them elaborate fairy tales, but when he’s gone, Marie Catherine indulges in a more liberated existence, one of forward-thinking discussions with female scholars in the salons of grand houses, and at the center of her freedom: Victoire Rose de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Conti, the androgynous, self-assured countess who steals Marie Catherine’s heart and becomes her lover. A very impressive debut historical fiction, set in the time of the 17th century Poison Affair in France. It is centred around a sapphic romance, but I wouldn’t classify it as a romance specifically. The author provides very interesting commentary on womens’ liberty and their relationships with marriage, gender expression, motherhood and class. It is also a mystery, with the protagonist trying to outwit the police throughout the story, while the police are desperately trying to get on top of the poison affair, and directing much of their suspicion and anger towards women.Serpent’s Tail has scooped a historical fiction debut and three works of translated fiction amid a raft of acquisitions for its main and classics lists, publishing in 2023 and 2024. I felt like the whole book needed a really good editor - someone with a big red pen - who could strike out the unnecessary and pull what was left together.

There are so many things to love about Celia Bell’s debut novel, The Disenchantment—drama in the royal court! murder! intrigue! historic gays! I could keep shouting, that’s how much I adored this enthralling story of love and scandal in seventeenth century Paris. I can’t wait to see what Celia does next!” I loved this novel. It’s difficult to talk about this book without giving too much away, but the twists and turns of this plot are completely gripping. Bell’s writing is immersive, and captures the atmosphere and drama of this plot so thoroughly that I was hardly able to put it down. Lesbian historical fiction is undeniably my favourite literary genre and this book did not disappoint. The Disenchantmentis well-researched, comprehensive, and draws on little-known moments of French history, expertly weaving fiction and fact together to create a wholly original novel. This book is perfect for fans of Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait(2022) or Emma Donoghue’s The Sealed Letter(2008). So it surprised him when she smiled at her son and patted his hair with her hand. No part of her, except her hand and the wrist attached to it, moved–it was like watching a puppet’s hand, pulled smoothly through the air on a string. Is that a secret, Madame? You gave your mother the credit when you began.’ The painter had stored his paints away neatly in his box. The easel he moved near to the wall, where it would stand, to avoid smudging the paint as it dried. The canvas showed a series of blurry forms coming into being – the green shadows of Madame de Cardonnoy’s dress, ribbons and lace just a vague suggestion of shadow. Her face he had worked more completely, and she saw herself younger, pink and pale, as if she was looking into a smudged mirror. He’d painted her with her lips a little parted, as if in the moment before she was about to speak. The reason I call this book a disenchantment, in itself, is because though the story is very slow, it does tug you through the emotions of the Marie Catherine and Victoire. You find yourself starting to become disenchanted with the story, you already know how it's going to end. You can taste the way the deed as tainted an otherwise exciting experience and just how fragile the concept of their love was.Look,” said the sculptor to the villagers. “I have made you a woman to give to the ogre. Send her to him and he will be satisfied, for she is made of cold stone and cannot be harmed by his appetites.”’ I'm giving it two stars because I really wanted to know what happened... I just absolutely could not endure reading it to find out. The story was there. Deep, deep, deep down in there. I tried so hard to love it... A shiver passed through the children. Nicolas, hungry as he was for stories about ogres and dragons, was easily frightened.

Bell’s inventive debut. . . . excels at creating a hothouse atmosphere in which depravity, sensuality, and duplicity reside side by side . . . a rousing feminist fable. It’s a bold and inspired mix ofLes Liaisons DangereusesandThe Crucible.” Yes, sometimes. I find it useful to read—often older books, or books that I love but haven’t read recently. I also think it’s useful to find some other, more concrete creative task to do. I like to garden, and sew, and I keep bees (which is also a big part of my day job), and I think these things help give you the sense of making something that is manifest and connected to the physical world that is sometimes difficult to access when you’re alone with words on a screen. What are you currently reading? Are there upcoming books that you are looking forward to? The publication marks the first English translation publication of the Turkish work of autofiction, an account of one liberal woman writer’s fight to survive depression and carve out her own path in Istanbul in the 1950s and 60s. Özlü herself was born in 1943 in Turkey and lived in Paris, Ankara, Istanbul, Berlin and Zurich, where she died in 1986. The villagers were afraid,’ she said, ‘for none of them had ever seen such magic, but for the first time they felt some hope in the face of their fate, and so they dressed the stone woman in a gown of red silk – the best that any of them had, the best their daughters had left behind – and they combed and plaited her white stone hair, and put slippers on her feet, and then the oldest of the men took her by the hand and led her to the forest’s edge, where he thanked her and left her in the shadow of the trees.’ For himself, Lavoie was attempting not to show how the wealth of the room discomforted him. It always happened like that at the beginning of a new sitting–he’d spend an hour worrying over whether his subjects would notice the worn collar on his silk coat, before his work had the opportunity to speak for itself. It was difficult to feel self-assured in a room with so much gilding on the furniture, even though Lavoie had painted the baron himself six months ago.Ghosts and shadows infuse Bell’s enigmatic tale with elements of the supernatural, while Marie Catherine’s allegorical fairy tales tell of feminist self-determination. . . . This is a tightly plotted, atmospheric and moody read, full of dark malevolence and a tangled web of complex relationships. . . . A riveting debut.”