Blois, 1705. The château of Duc Hugo d’Amboise simmers with rivalry and intrigue. Henriette d’Augustin, one of five mistresses of the duc, lives at the chateau with her daughter. When the duc’s wife, Duchesse Charlotte, maliciously undermines a new mistress, Letitia, Henriette is forced to choose between position and morality. She fights to maintain her status whilst targeted by the duchesse who will do anything to harm her enemies. The arrival of charismatic tarot reader, Romain de Villiers, further escalates tensions as rivals in love and domestic politics strive for supremacy.In a society where status is a matter of life and death, Henriette must stay true to herself, her daughter, and her heart, all the while hiding a painful secret of her own.
Kate Murdochexhibited widely as a painter both in Australia and internationally before turning her hand to writing. Her short-form fiction has been published in literary journals in Australia, UK, US and Canada. Her debut novel,Stone Circle, was on the semi-finalist list for the Chaucer Awards 2018 for pre-1750’s historical fiction. She was awarded a KSP Fellowship to develop her third novel,The Glasshouse. She lives in Melbourne with her husband and two children.
The Orange Grove is a light and entertaining read about the fierce competitiveness that exists between the rival mistresses of a nineteenth-century French duc.
![The Orange Grove [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/1/1/9/2_4199722.jpg "The Orange Grove [Paperback]")