The first installment of a historical fiction trilogy tracing the fortunes of four close friends who meet in Paris in 1900.In the winter of 1966, Isabelle Lavigne, a 26-year-old French reporter, arrives on Blackwater Island in Maryland. She is there to learn the truth about the mysterious death of her grandmother, Suzanne de Lamothe, in 1919. She is seeking answers from Suzanne’s best friend, American artist Jennie Latmore. For Jennie, now 82 years old, reliving the past is traumatic, and she refuses to answer Isabelle’s questions — until Isabelle shows her a damning little red book and several photographs found in her mother’s trunk. Jennie relents: “To understand," she says. "You must know it all from the beginning, as I lived it and as it was told to me.” Jump back to 1900, and an enthusiastic 16-year-old Jennie arrives in Paris to begin her tenure as assistant governess for the children of the new American ambassador to France. Her roommate in the servants’ quarters is the equally young Suzanne, a French scullery maid. Despite a confrontational start, the two become fast friends. When the ambassador holds a dinner party, Jennie and Suzanne watch from the second-floor landing, catching the eyes of two handsome, fun-loving guests, French painter Geste D’Arcourt and British sculptor Charlie Clark. Through the complicated relationships of these four protagonists — and the forces that send them, reluctantly, in different directions — the first few years of the 20th century are brought to light. From the Bohemian Left Bank in Paris (Matisse and Picasso) to the great expanses of the American Southwest and the horrors of the Boxer Rebellion in China, the four friends struggle against societal mores, personal frailties, violence, and tragedy.
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