Moran certainly makes us sympathetic for the Royals, which was an interesting twist.

With that said, I was utterly engrossed by the detailed, first-hand accounts of the revolution.

Not because I'm necessarily a big fan of Moran - this is actually the first of her books I've read - but because I'm a history nut with a penchant for the French Revolution. I'll start by saying I may have a bit of a bias in favoring this book. Spanning five years from budding revolution to the Reign of Terror, Madame Tussaud brings us into the world of an incredible heroine whose talent for wax moulding saved her life and preserved the faces of a vanished kingdom. The year is 1788 and men like Desmoulins, Marat, and Robespierre are meeting in the salons of Paris speaking against the monarchy there's whispered talk of revolution. As Marie familiarizes herself with Princess Elisabeth and begins to know Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, she witnesses the glamorous life of court, a very different world from her home on the Boulevard du Temple of Paris where bread can only be had on the black market and men sell their teeth to put food on the their tables. When Marie moves from her family's waxwork museum into the palace of Versailles, her whole life is set to change.When Marie Tussaud learns the exciting news the royal family will be visiting her famed wax museum, the Salon de Cire, she never dreams that the king's sister will request her presence at Versailles: as a royal tutor in wax sculpting.

Madame tussaud by michelle moran