Madame Tussaud

by Michelle Moran

First published 2011

Amazon

4.0(23,777)

Paris, 1788. Marie Grosholtz has mastered wax modelling in the Salon de Cire established by Philippe Curtius, where portraits of royalty, philosophers and political celebrities turn current events into public spectacle. Her work brings her into contact with both the court at Versailles and the reformers gathering in Paris, leaving the family business dependent upon audiences whose loyalties are becoming increasingly dangerous.

As revolution destroys the monarchy and political violence intensifies, Marie must continually recast the exhibition to satisfy whoever holds power. Imprisonment and suspicion threaten her family, and the skill that once secured royal patronage is used to make masks of the executed during the Reign of Terror. The novel follows her effort to survive without surrendering the people she loves or the craft through which she records a vanished world.