I am thrilled to part of the blog tour for Enchantée by Gita Trelease! I read this book and fell in love with the world, the magic, and the characters. And I get to share an excerpt of one of my favorite passages!

About The Book

Paris is a labryinth of twisted streets filled with beggars and thieves,
revolutionaries and magicians. Camille Durbonne is one of them. She wishes
she weren’t…

When smallpox kills her parents, Camille must find a way to provide for her
younger sister while managing her volatile brother. Relying on magic,
Camille painstakingly transforms scraps of metal into money to buy food and
medicine they need. But when the coins won’t hold their shape and her
brother disappears with the family’s savings, Camille pursues a richer,
more dangerous mark: the glittering court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

Using dark magic forbidden by her mother, Camille transforms herself into a
baroness and is swept up into life at the Palace of Versailles, where
aristocrats both fear and hunger for magic. As she struggles to reconcile
her resentment of the rich with the allure of glamour and excess, Camille
meets a handsome younge inventor, and begins to believe that love and
liberty may both be possible.

But magic has its costs, and soon Camille loses control of her secrets. And
when revolution erupts, Camille must choose―love or loyalty, democracy or
aristocracy, reality of magic―before Paris burns.

When I first read the summary, I was instantly intrigued. It sounded like a unique and interesting take on magic and I am always drawn in by glamour, secrets, and Paris.

About The Author

 

 

Born in Sweden to Indian and Swedish parents, Gita Trelease has lived in
many places, including New York, Paris, and a tiny town in central Italy.
She attended Yale College and New York University, where she earned a Ph.D.
in British literature. Before becoming a novelist, she taught classes on
writing and fairy tales. With her husband and son, Gita divides her time
between a village in Massachusetts and the coast of Maine. ENCHANTÉE is her
debut novel.

 

 

And now for the excerpt!

Past the flowering chestnut trees near the fence, through the open gate, and into the soft soil of the field, Camille ran. She ignored the shout of the farmhands and the violent jump of her pulse.

The balloon sped toward her, now only a few feet above the ground.

“Messieurs! Save us!” yelled the dark-haired balloonist. But the farmhands scattered, shielding their heads with their arms and careening toward the trees.

Camille lost her footing in the loose soil, caught herself, and kept running. With each breath, her chest fought against her stays. Her lungs ached, sharp dust in her throat.

As she drew closer she saw the balloonists weren’t men at all but boys, not much older than she. One of them – small, thin in this shirtsleeves – was pulling hard on a rope tied to the balloons opening over the brazier. “The release valve is broken, Lazare!” he yelled.

“Whose fault is that?” the other one said. Behind him, his hair streamed out like a flag, his cravat a flash of white under his soot-streaked face.

“Yours!”

“If we’d had enough ballast, we wouldn’t be in this predicament!” the dark-haired one shouted back. His face was tight with fear.

Far away, as if in a dream, Sophie called her name.

Camille was almost there. She saw how the gondola was fashioned only of woven willow branches, with simple leather straps holding it’s door closed; she saw how the taut ropes vibrated with strain. It was so fragile. In an instant, it would be smashed.

I thought this passage, along with what comes before and after, is amazing. Camille gets to be awesome and hot air balloons are involved!

Enchantée is on sale now! You can add it on GoodReads and order a copy of your own!

Here is the schedule for the blog tour if you want to check out all the other posts!

Thank you for reading!