A review by tasharobinson
The Court Charade by Flore Vesco

4.0

This one (read on the free library app Hoopla) is a real find — a lively, nervy, often silly story about a young woman who enters a French court hoping to escape an arranged marriage and become a handmaiden to the queen, and winds up confidently navigating a lot of court intrigue. There are a lot of players here, but the action's still pretty straightforward: the queen is vain, bored, and hungry for novelty; the king is old, distracted, and out of touch; everyone around them is scheming or sheltering from the court nonsense. What struck me most about this book is that the protagonist really is clever and funny as she takes on the court — both of those things being easy to say, but harder to write, especially as she has to keep switching characters and approaches to manage the court's constantly shifting dynamics. It's a pretty kid-safe book — the art reminded me a lot of Quentin Blake — but it's fun for adults, too.