Having enjoyed Naslund’s “Ahab’s Wife” previously, I was looking forward to her new historical fiction about Marie Antoinette. The story begins as 14-year-old Marie, daughter of the Empress of Austria, journeys to France to wed the 15-year-old Dauphin (Louis XVI); and ends with her memorable death at the guillotine during the French Revolution.

It’s hard sometimes to read through a book knowing full well how it ends. There is always that distracting, perpetual dark shadow looming in the background. When the family was making their escape attempt I was cheering them on, whimsically hoping that maybe this time around they would succeed, but alas! Throughout the book I had to keep reminding myself that, although intensely researched, this was still a work of fiction—it was like reading the intimate thoughts from someone’s diary. I felt both sympathy for Marie and the royal family and pity at their self-absorption and naïveté. It does not cause the reader to think they are truly evil or ruthless people, but that the fault lies perhaps in how they are raised in a world of true opulence; isolated, untouched and unaffected by the reality, and especially the plights, of the average citizen. As is the mark of good historical fiction, upon finishing I was compelled to learn more about the real historical figures therein.