Review: The Blue Rose

A historical romantic fiction by Kate Forsyth

If you are fascinated by Paris, the French Revolution, and romance intoxicated with the perfume of roses, this book will entice and captivate you.

Kate Forsyth, master storyteller, weaves a rich history of characters rooted in a chateau in the French countryside of Brittany, branching to the magnificent courts of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, and blooming in the hidden gardens of Imperial China.

This is a story you haven’t heard, of the deceits and betrayals of the royal family, alongside the valiant struggles of the poor as they storm the Bastille armed with sticks and shovels. When all is lost, the heroine, Viviane, in grave danger, the Chateau imperilled, her paramour, David, is in China in search of the blood red rose that will change their fortunes. In the Imperial courts of the mandarin Emperor of China the blue roses of impossible love are closely guarded and stealing one is a mythic task, with Kate maintaining the tension until the last pages.

Kate’s novel is brimming with fascinating botanical and historical details. Her novel is sumptuous with scents of simmering stews and sweetness of spring plum blossom, the whisper touch of silk and the powdered grey of ashes, the glory of gilded palaces and the dank sweat and fierce cold of prison, so the reader is immersed in an enchanted sense of another world, real in all detail, a parallel tale of yesterday, a brilliant and lively history.

Useful Links

Kate Forsyth Author Website  https://kateforsyth.com.au/

A Writer’s Retreat in the Cotswolds with Kate Forsyth   https://kateforsyth.com.au/writing-retreat-in-the-cotswolds

Booktopia   https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-blue-rose-kate-forsyth/book/9780143786160.html

Amazon https://www.amazon.com.au/s?k=Kate+forsyth&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Image credits: Penguin Australia