Publisher's Summary

Marie Antoinette was a child of 14 when she was made to leave her family and country to become the wife of another child, France's 15-year-old King Louis the XVI. Far from home and suddenly thrust not only into the role of a woman and wife, but of a queen, Marie Antoinette lived an astonishing, though short, existence.

Though fictionalized, Abundance is based on Sena Jeter Naslund's impeccable research. It reveals Marie Antoinette as an entirely different person from the one who supposedly said of the starving French peasants, "Let them eat cake"; in fact, she rebelled against the extravagances of the court. But as an outsider, she was the target of an uprising that finally decided her fate. Naslund, who brought to life a compelling fictional woman in Ahab's Wife, now draws a gripping portrait of an historical figure we thought we knew. And in doing so, she has created one of her most memorable and moving characters.

©2006 Sena Jeter Naslund; (P)2006 HarperCollins Publishers