Book 2 in the Lady Slayers series, about French murderess and fortune
teller Catherine Monvoisin
In 17th-century Paris, 19-year-old Catherine Monvoisin is a well-heeled
jeweler's wife with a peculiar taste for the arcane. She lives a
comfortable life, far removed from a childhood of abject
destitution--until her kind spendthrift of a husband lands them both in
debt. Hell-bent on avoiding a return to poverty, Catherine must rely on
her prophetic visions and the grimoire gifted to her by a talented
diviner to reinvent herself as a sorceress. With the help of the grifter
Marie Bosse, Catherine divines fortunes in the IIle de la Citee--home to
sorcerers and scoundrels.
There she encounters the Marquise de Montespan, a stunning noblewoman.
When the Marquise becomes Louis XIV's royal mistress with Catherine's
help, her ascension catapults Catherine to notoriety. Catherine takes
easily to her glittering new life as the Sorceress La Voisin, pitting
the depraved noblesse against one other to her advantage. The stakes
soar ever higher when her path crosses with that of a young magician. A
charged rivalry between sorceress and magician leads to Black Masses,
tangled deceptions, and grisly murder--and sets Catherine on a collision
course that threatens her own life.