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11 of the best books set in France

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Why we still love reading about ‘mad’ women

The prize-winning, international bestseller and Sunday Times Top Fiction selection

The Mad Women's Ball

For fans of The Doll Factory and The Familiars, a gemlike novel set in a Parisian asylum in 1885 about two women - one deemed mad, the other sane - who find their salvation at The Mad Women's Ball

[Victoria Mas's]... portrait of women who were unfairly banished to asylums often because they did not fit into the straightjacket of 19th-century society is moving... beautifully drawn.

THE MAD WOMEN'S BALL is a darkly sumptuous tale of wicked spectacle, wild injustice and the insuppressible strength of women. Mas brings the world of La Salpêtrière to life with passion and fury, unveiling a hypnotic theatre that is as moving as it is macabre.

Emma Stonex, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Lamplighters

[An] essential story of women resisting the unjust exertion of male power.

In this darkly delightful Gothic treasure, Mas explores grief, trauma and sisterhood behind the walls of Paris' infamous Salpetriere hospital.

PAULA HAWKINS, Sunday Times bestselling author of A SLOW FIRE BURNING and THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

Elegantly written, Victoria Mas's slender, potent debut celebrates sisterhood, while also exposing the corrupt powers of the patriarchy at home and in the wider world.

Enthralling and wonderfully imagined... written with terrific verve and sympathy.

A deftly woven tale of hope and pain, judgement and redemption, cruelty and kindness. Utterly captivating and profoundly affecting, the story of The Salpêtrière lingers long in the mind after the stunning conclusion. I loved it.

A beautifully written debut set in Paris in 1885, Victoria Mas' characters come to life within a sentence while her storytelling compels you to turn the page. I loved The Mad Women's Ball and have absolutely no doubt it will be one of my favourite novels of 2021.

'Beautifully written and captures the world so well. A delight to read.'

A gothic, feminist book ...so cinematic it is already being turned into a film...it evokes the Brontës, with its dormitories, its phials and its ghosts. But thematically, it is bang up to date.

The Mad Women's Ball is as lush on the inside as it is on the outside! It's richly immersive, taking us right into the heart of nineteenth-century Paris. From Genevieve, Eugenie and the women of Salpêtrière we learn what it is that keeps women locked up - and the extraordinary ways in which they might escape.

'Enter the dance of this little masterpiece and let yourself be dazzled. Assured of hitting the bestseller lists'

A well-written historical novel... book groups will thoroughly engage with the plot and characters.

The Mad Women's Ball is Victoria Mas's debut novel. It has won several prizes in France (including the Prix Stanislas and Prix Renaudot des Lycéens) and was the bestselling debut of the year. Victoria has worked in film in the United States, where she lived for eight years. She graduated from the Sorbonne in Contemporary Literature.The Mad Women's Ball is now an Amazon Prime Video Original Film starring Mélanie Laurent and Lou de Louâge.

'A darkly sumptuous tale of wicked spectacle, wild injustice and the insuppressible strength of women' EMMA STONEX, author of THE LAMPLIGHTERS 
 
'An essential story of women resisting the unjust exertion of male power' SUNDAY TIMES 
 
____________________ 
 
 The Salpêtrière asylum, 1885. All of Paris is in thrall to Doctor Charcot and his displays of hypnotism on women who have been deemed mad or hysterical, outcasts from society. But the truth is much more complicated - for these women are often simply inconvenient, unwanted wives or strong-willed daughters. Once a year a grand ball is held at the hospital. For the Parisian elite, the Mad Women's Ball is the highlight of the social season; for the women themselves, it is a rare moment of hope. 
 
 Geneviève is a senior nurse. After the childhood death of her sister, she has shunned religion and placed her faith in Doctor Charcot and his new science. But everything begins to change when she meets Eugénie, the 19-year-old daughter of a bourgeois family. Because Eugénie has a secret, and she needs Geneviève's help. Their fates will collide on the night of the Mad Women's Ball... 
 
____________________ 
 
'In this darkly delightful Gothic treasure, Mas explores grief, trauma and sisterhood behind the walls of Paris' infamous Salpetriere hospital' PAULA HAWKINS, author of A SLOW FIRE BURNING 
 
 'A beautifully written debut...I have absolutely no doubt it will be one of my favourite novels of 2021.' AJ PEARCE, author of DEAR MRS BIRD 
 
'Essential reading' COSMOPOLITAN 
 
 'A deftly woven tale of hope and pain, judgement and redemption, cruelty and kindness. Utterly captivating and profoundly affecting.' Sunday Times bestseller, MIRANDA DICKENSON 
 
 'Enter the dance of this little masterpiece and let yourself be dazzled. Assured of hitting the bestseller lists' THE PARISIAN 
 
____________________ 
 
AN AMAZON PRIME ORIGINAL FILM STARRING MÉLANIE LAURENT

Victoria Mas

Frank Wynne

Sometimes the truth lies in the things you cannot see. 
 
In 1830 a young novice called Catherine Labouré was granted a vision of the Virgin Mary. Nearly 200 years later, Sister Anne is also waiting for a sign. Which is why she accepts a mission to go to a tiny community on an island just off the coast of Brittany. Her only companion there is a sceptical, chain-smoking older nun who just wants to be left in peace. 
 
On the island she meets Hugo, the son of a devout family who prefers to look for the meaning of life amid the stars; Madenn, a grandmother whose daughter was killed in a crash and who finds meaning in routine; Isaac, Madenn's grandson, an otherworldly teenager who doesn't fit in but who befriends Hugo, and Julia, a sickly child. If anyone needs a miracle, it is her. 
 
But it is not Sister Anne who receives a vision. Instead it is Isaac who is found on a promontary, transfixed, unable to utter more than the words 'I see'. The event soon becomes headline news and the world descends on the small island, opening old wounds and unleashing a chain of events none of them could have foreseen.

Victoria Mas

Books by Victoria Mas

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11 of the best books set in France

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Why we still love reading about ‘mad’ women

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