Marvelous

A Novel

By: Molly Greeley

Narrated by: Ell Potter

"Enchanting. Molly Greeley has pulled off a piece of magic to tell a dazzling love story about the outcast's ache to be cared for and belong. This book broke my heart and put it back together again."—Allison Epstein, author of A Tip for the Hangman

A mesmerizing novel set in the French royal court of Catherine de’ Medici during the Renaissance, which recreates the touching and surprising true story behind the Beauty and the Beast legend, from the acclaimed author of The Clergyman’s Wife and The Heiress.

1547: Pedro Gonzales, a young boy living on the island of Tenerife, understands that he is different from the other children in his village. He is mercilessly ridiculed for the hair covering his body from head to toe. When he is kidnapped off the beach near his home, he finds himself delivered by a slave broker into the dangerous and glamorous world of France’s royal court. There “Monsieur Sauvage,” as he is known, learns French, literature, and sword fighting, becoming an attendant to the French King Henri II and a particular favorite of his queen, the formidable Catherine de’ Medici. Queen Catherine considers herself a collector of unusual people and is fascinated by Pedro…and determined to find him a bride.

Catherine Raffelin is a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl whose merchant father has fallen on hard times and offers up his daughter to Queen Catherine. The queen will pay his debts, and his daughter will marry Monsieur Sauvage.

Catherine meets Pedro for the first time on their wedding day. Barely recovered from the shock of her father’s betrayal, she soon finds herself christened “Madame Sauvage” by the royal courtiers, and must learn to navigate this strange new world, and the unusual man who is now her husband.

Gorgeously written, heartbreaking and hopeful, Marvelous is the portrait of a marriage, the story of a remarkable, resilient family, and an unforgettable reimaging of one of the world’s most beloved fairy tales.

"A richly detailed and imaginative novel. Readers will relish Greeley's emotionally potent tale."—Booklist

©2023 Molly Greeley (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

Fascinating perspective

While clearly fictional, this story is utterly compelling and believable, offering a compassionate viewpoint of what life might like for the characters in the story

Ear Candy

Prose, rich as poetry, images real enough to touch or smell, emotions soar, swim seaweed strewn depths or crawl, bloody kneed, across polished marble floors sparkling with shards and miniscule fragments of mouth blown crystal stemwear.
An unusual, lonely boy lands in a rarefied world where he must swallow his masculine pride to survive. His boyhood friend and their patron, drive plot revealing secrets.
His beautiful wife, a coddled only daughter of wealth, finds herself bartered to a stranger beast. They reside, captive in castles.
A whole new more historic take on an all too familiar tale but this time from the inside of two tenacious lovers. Their hopes, fears, acute mental gymnastics and perceptions of depth and complexity banter back and forth as the story staggers around in time.
Well worth the listen.
Spoiler alert, have tissues handy.

really interesting tale

Petrus Gonzalves had a very interesting tale. This narration of it was...very descriptive. each sentence contained a half dozen adjectives or adverbs. Then again, it's also possible my issue is the overly dramatic reading. it's like listening to an aspca commercial with the narrator on the verge of tears. Listening at 1.2 speed makes it a little more bearable.

Exquisite, Lovely, Heartbreaking—yes—Marvelous

This book utterly wrecked me, time and time again, the audio is absolutely exquisite. I’ve been a Molly fan since her first book, and I tell you—it’s so amazing to see an author’s talent grow and grow and grow. This is Molly’s best book yet, as she discovered a story, possibly the story behind the Beauty and the Beast legend. She discovered it, and she plumbed it, ever deeper and deeper still, meticulously (beautifully) picking away at my heart. Yes, it’s a story of a family that existed, fed and kept alive by the expansiveness, curiosity, and, frankly, the need for always bigger and better that drives kings and queens and dukes and our own oligarchs.

But ultimately, this is the story of a heart. A live, beating heart, a few of them. A boy’s heart. A lover’s heart. A daughter’s heart. A mother’s heart. Oh, my heart! It kept me up past my bedtime and made me late!

We can see, with our modern eyes, the horror of the treatment. Hopefully we can examine our own selves, too. Renaissance France hasn’t felt this real to me in a very long time. Well done!🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Narration is French Kiss perfection.

Writing a little flowery for my taste

The story is OK but overly embellished but perhaps it’s just my preference for tight editing

Marvelous!

Loved this story. Narrator is my favorite to listen to. I will listen to this one again.

A superb historical fiction

The author's descriptive language, the story and the narration combine to make this a compelling book. it was easy to get lost in the telling of this narrative.