The Versailles Formula, my eighth historical novel, is available in paperback and ebook format in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia. I've created a suspenseful story rich with atmospheric detail that I hope will plunge you deep into mid-18th-century England and France.
r
Here's the story:
May 1766: Genevieve Sturbridge lives a quiet life in the countryside with her husband and son. But an invitation to dine at Sir Horace Walpole's eerie Gothic estate pulls her back into a deadly world of espionage. Genevieve uncovers a shocking secret - a rare pigment of pure blue is being produced again. Coveted by royalty, chemists, and spies, the formula is priceless . . . and lethal. Only Genevieve can recognise the formula and discover the truth before time runs out, because this time the price of failure will cost more than just her own life.
Reviews:
‘[A] compelling adventure replete with spies, political intrigue, gorgeous Gothic manor houses, romance, impeccably researched history.’ Susan Elia MacNeal, New York Times bestselling author of the Maggie Hope series
‘In Genevieve Planché, Bilyeau has created a wonderfully wilful woman: as smart as she is sensitive, as brave as she is bold. Compelling to read . . . This is a series going from strength to strength.’ Kate Braithwaite, author of The Scandalous Life of Nancy Randolph
With one day left before the official publication of The Versailles Formula, I would love to share the early reviews and endorsements from other novelists. Some are historical novelists, some are thriller writers, and some are historical mystery scribes. I deeply appreciate the time they took to read it and wanted to share the response to the book from my peers.
"Nancy Bilyeau's Versailles Formula is the continuing compelling adventure of whip-smart and determined heroine Genevieve Planché. It’s replete with spies, political intrigue, gorgeous gothic manor houses, romance, impeccably researched history—and the shocking history of the color blue."
--Susan Elia MacNeal, New York Times bestselling author of the Maggie Hope series
"A plucky heroine, intriguing mystery, and rich, well-researched historical background. Nancy Bilyeau has found the winning formula!"
--Eva Stachniak, author of The School of Mirrors
"Nancy Bilyeau has done it again. It is a masterful work which weaves great characters not to mention a plot that Poe himself would love. The story unfolds through the eyes of the protagonist and we see a treacherous world where nothing is as it seems. When we enter the Gothic world of Sir Horace Walpole then the reader treads a thrilling path which keeps you on the edge of your seat."
--Griff Hosker. author of An Officer and a Gentleman
"The excitement and action ramp up steadily, and Bilyeau's exquisite pacing will have you wanting to binge the novel in one sitting. Part espionage novel, part intriguing look at the historical importance of art and the porcelain industry to 18th-century diplomacy, The Versailles Formula is a riveting and deftly written tale that will keep you up much too late at night, for all the right reasons."
-- Paulette Kennedy, author of The Artist of Blackberry Grange
"Bilyeau gives the reader a fabulous tour of 18th-century Paris from its convents and opera houses to the louche masked balls of the aristocracy. Genevieve is a complicated, highly intelligent character who never falls into the dull predictability of the "spirited woman ahead of her time" tropes. The ending leaves the possibility open for another Genevieve Planche novel, and I very much look forward!"
-- Mariah Fredericks, author of The Wharton Plot
"In Genevieve Planché, Bilyeau has created a wonderfully wilful woman: as smart as she is sensitive, as brave as she is bold. Compelling to read . . . This is a series going from strength to strength."
--Kate Braithwaite, author of The Scandalous Life of Nancy Randolph
"An indomitable artist turned spy heroine on a near impossible mission. A color of blue so seductive that men will kill for it and countries will go to the brink of war. A star-crossed love, as delicious as it is forbidden. Thoroughly researched and exquisitely wrought, The Versailles Formula has all the ingredients of a rollicking, riveting historical mystery must-read!"
-- Hope C. Tarr, author of Irish Eyes and Stardust
"What impressed me the most is her gift for detailed description. When Genevieve lands in Paris to begin her dangerous mission, we can see the narrow streets with their buildings that 'sagged towards each other, nearly touching.' Inside the Comedie Française, we smell the 'thick, intoxicating swirl of perfume, a hothouse of human flowers blooming all at once.' And we can laugh at the absurdity of the nobility in their white silk socks, jeweled shoes, and heads covered in wigs that 'resemble sparkling beehives.' The Versailles Formula is a master class in the lost art of description, and I loved it for that."
--Jodi Daynard, author of A Transcontinental Affair
"With action-packed scenes to rival the classic The Scarlet Pimpernel, Nancy Bilyeau's excellent third book in the Genevieve Planché series, The Versailles Formula, solicits page-turning suspense until the very end. Reader, be ready for the world outside of reading this book to disappear."
-- Susan Wands, author of Magician and Fool
"Nancy Bilyeau's engaging protagonist, Genevieve Planché, returns in an undercover mission to 18th-century Paris, where she risks her life to unearth a secret that could reignite war between England and France. But Genevieve’s quest is as personal as it is political — Cracks have begun to form in her once-happy marriage, and she finds herself drawn to the man assigned to be her partner in France. With a cast of real and fictional figures, prose as smooth as French silk, and breathtaking twists, The Versailles Formula is exactly the book any lover of historical fiction would want to have in their hands right now."
-- Mally Becker, author of The Paris Mistress
"Thanks to the depth of Bilyeau’s craft, readers will share Genevieve’s tension and fear as she races through settings from rough, working-class Southwark to glittering Versailles. As Genevieve’s heart races, so will yours. If you like your mystery with twisty, dark history, The Versailles Formula is for you."
-- Sophie Perinot, author of Medicis Daughter
"Sumptuous and deeply engaging, Nancy Bilyeau's Versailles Formula is a gorgeously written adventure . . . brimming with mystery, beauty, romance, and history's most fascinating luminaries."
--Emilya Naymark, author of Behind the Lie
"The action takes place in England and France, castles and cemeteries and chateaux, grand ballrooms, sinister prisons, and cloistered convents. Historical figures flit through, from Horace Walpole, the father of the Gothic novel, to the Marquis de Sade, who lived one. The Versailles Formula is Bilyeau at her best, a classic tale of mystery and intrigue that only lacks a cameo from a dueling D'Artagnan to make my life complete. If you've read the first two books in the series, this is one you've been eagerly awaiting. If you haven't, this is a hellacious introduction."
--Timothy Miller, author of The Strange Case of the Pharaoh's Heart.
"The Versailles Formula takes readers on a fascinating journey to eighteenth-century England and France, where vicious aristocrats play a deadly game of forgery and espionage . . . Nancy Bilyeau treats us to another tale full of intrigue and delightful historical details."
-- Mark Alpert, bestselling author of The Doomsday Show
After I turned in my final edits on The Versailles Formula, I felt a tug of excitement over seeing what cover design my publisher's designer had created for the novel. Both The Blue and The Fugitive Colours displayed lovely covers, and I was curious to see the plan for the third in the series.
To my surprise, my editor emailed me that the team at Joffe Books had come up with a bold new idea: to redesign the covers of the first two novels along with the cover of the third. The series would take a fresh approach, emphasizing that these were suspenseful historical novels with a woman protagonist at the center who was facing obstacles and searching for answers. (Once I think about it, the covers of the first two, while striking, did not convey that.)
They fiddled and fussed over the details for a while—I have to say the suspense was building in my house! But when my editor emailed me the covers, I was enthralled. They have a rich atmosphere, a touch of eeriness, and a mood that I think conveys the spirit of Genevieve Planché.
I am so excited to share the cover of my third novel in the 18th-century Genevieve Planche series: 'The Versailles Formula.'
Genevieve Sturbridge has left the dangers of London for a quiet life in the countryside with her husband and young son. But when she is invited to a dinner party at Sir Horace Walpole’s magnificent Gothic estate, she is drawn into a terrifying web of deception, espionage and murder.
At the mysterious dinner party Genevieve makes a shocking discovery — a secret pigment of the deepest, purest blue is being produced once more. The formula is so rare, it’s the obsession of chemists, royalty, and spies.
Some will kill to possess it. Others will kill to keep it buried.
Only Genevieve can recognise the formula and stop it falling into the wrong hands. But when a ghost from her past resurfaces, Genevieve must determine who she can trust. Years ago, this secret nearly cost her and her husband their lives. Now, someone is willing to kill for it once more.
Genevieve must discover the truth before time runs out, because this time the price of failure will cost more than just her own life.
The winter solstice falls on Saturday, December 21st, this year. For centuries, the belief has been that the veil between the living and the departed is most easily lifted on the shortest day of the year.
That is why the ghosts appear to Ebeneezer Scrooge just before Christmas. Charles Dickens’ writing of A Christmas Carol followed a long tradition of ghosts showing themselves at this time of year.
The tradition has continued right up to modern times. In the 1963 song “The Right Time of the Year,” Andy Williams sings:
There’ll be parties for hosting/ Marshmallows for toasting/And caroling out in the snow/There’ll be scary ghost stories/And tales of the glories/Of Christmases long, long ago.
When did this begin, the custom of scary tales told just around the time when families traditionally gather to open gifts, admire the Christmas tree, and dive into a big dinner?
It is the solstice rather than the celebration of the birth of Jesus that seems to have launched it. The days were at their shortest, food supplies could be running low — and spring seemed a long way away. Gathering to frighten one another with stories of the supernatural was a way to ward off more prosaic fears. (Not that different than people going to the cinema to watch a horror film today.)
However, there was nothing Andy Williams-ish about the earliest known Christmas ghost stories. They were gruesome medieval stories. Within some stiff competition, the Icelandic tales were particularly terrifying.
In The Saga of the People of Floi, a group gathers for feasting on Christmas Day, finally falling asleep, exhausted. That night, a knock is heard on the door. One of the revelers rouses himself to answer it, steps outside and disappears. One by one, some half a dozen men are picked off, for it turns out that specters wait outside to drive them insane and to their deaths.
“Once Christmas is over, the dead return in force: not only are the rowdy Jostein’s crew brought back as Revenants, but so are a number of dead locals,” writes Jon Kaneko-James in the article Ghosts of Christmas Past: Christmas Ghost Stories, Scandinavian Revenants, and the Medieval Dead in England. “Finally Thorgils, captain of the crew who slept early, takes all of the dead and burns them in a pyre, ensuring that none of the Revenants, one of whom was his wife, would rise to trouble the living again.”
More Icelandic stories unfurl Christmas horrors, such as certain chapters of The Eyrbyggja Saga, in which a moon foretells the dead seeking to join the living for Christmas — and it’s very difficult to get them to leave. The Thorgunna section revolves around a wealthy woman dying and giving specific requests about what should be done with her bedsheets. These requests are not honored. (Are you surprised?)
Note: The excellent podcast Saga Thing tackles The Eyrbyggja Saga with insight and humor.
Things go bump in the night in the Thorgunna section of the Icelandic saga
Today Iceland has the tradition of the lovable Yule Lads who show up on December 12th, leaving gifts in the shoes that children left on windowsills.
But the Yule Lads have gone through an astonishing transformation. In Journalist Ragnar Tomas writes:
“The first mention of the Icelandic Yule Lads is the 17th-century Poem of Grýla , which asserts that they are the sons of Grýla — a flesh-eating hag who cooks children in a cauldron — and Leppalúði, a lazy troglodyte. Needless to say, such people should not reproduce. Ailurophiles (‘cat-lovers’) might think better of them knowing that they kept a cat. But not so fast. Theirs was not some amiable Maine Coon, who lazed around their apartment and snuggled up to house callers. No, their cat was the ‘Christmas Cat,’ who prowled the snowy countryside and devoured children who had not been given new clothes to wear before Christmas (admittedly, an oddly specific culinary preference).”
Medieval England offers up its goodly portion of Yuletime chills too. One example: A tailor named Snawball who encounters the spirit of a dead man in the form of a crow wreathed in fire.
One of my favorites is from the Tudor period, taking place on the Orkneys. A woman named Katharine Fordyce dies in childbirth but appears in a dream to tell a woman who was her neighbor that she must name her next daughter after Katharine. As long as that girl lives in the home, the family will be safe.
When the girl grows up and marries, preparing to leave home, Katharine Fordyce has her vengeance. On the wedding night a “fearful storm” arrives that “the like had no’ been minded in the time o’ anybody alive,” according to Examples of Printed Folk-lore Concerning the Orkney & Shetland Islands
The sheep belonging to the bride’s father were swept off the land and into the sea:
Some folk did say that old men with long white beards were seen stretching their pale hands out of the surf and taking hold of the creatures.
More and more such stories found themselves into print. In Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Mamillius says, “A sad tale’s best for winter. I have one. Of sprites and goblins.” It hardly needs to be pointed out that the Bard loved a ghost!
Still, it’s the Victorian age, with its whiff of the occult, when telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve or another night close to Christmas firmly established itself. Groups gathered, usually around the fireplace, to share tales of ghouls and specters, trying to outdo one another.
Of course, no discussion of ghost stories is complete without M. R. James, who lived from 1862 to 1936. A medieval scholar and provost of King’s College, Cambridge, he published collections of ghost stories that have exerted enormous influence. As The New Yorker wrote in a story on James, “At Eton and at Cambridge, he liked telling his scary stories to boys and undergraduates around the fire in a dimly lit room, and presenting a new story to friends at Christmas.”
It’s hard to choose among H. R. James’ gems, but the one that seems to linger with me the longest is “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad.” A professor finds a whistle in a ruin bearing two Latin inscriptions. One he can translate; the other he can’t. Not knowing it’s a warning, he blows the whistle…
“Whistle and I’ll Come to You”
From 1971 to 1978, the BBC ran A Ghost Story for Christmas, adapting five stories from M. R. James, among other works for television. They were “The Stalls of Barchester,” “A Warning to the Curious,” “Lost Hearts,” “The Treasure of Abbot Thomas,” and “The Ash Tree.”
Americans are no slouches in the telling of ghost stories, nor in connecting them to the tradition of Christmas time. Henry James begins his 1898 horror novella The Turn of the Screw like this:
The tale had held us, round the fireplace, sufficiently breathless, however except the obvious remark that it changed into gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an antique residence, a weird tale need to basically be, I remember no commentary uttered until someone to mention that it become the satisfactory case he had met wherein the sort of visitation had fallen on an infant.
Ghost stories are very subjective — of course — and forgive me if I’ve left out anyone’s favorites! And be sure to read one around Christmastime.
Nancy Bilyeau is a magazine editor who has worked on the staffs of ‘Entertainment Weekly,’ ‘Rolling Stone,’ and ‘InStyle’ and a writer of historical fiction. She followed her Joanna Stafford suspense trilogy, set in Tudor England, with ‘The Blue,’ an espionage tale set in the porcelain factories of 18th century Europe, ‘The Fugitive Colours,’ its sequel, and, in 2025, ‘The Versailles Formula.’
Nancy wrote a Christmas ghost story novella titled ‘The Ghost of Madison Avenue.’ It is set in the Morgan Library in 1912.
For the next few days, my historical novel 'The Orchid Hour' is having a deep discount: It costs $.099/£0.99 as an ebook on amazon in the US and the UK.
"The Orchid Hour" is more than a conventional page-turner; it is a literary tour de force, brimming with tension, intrigue, danger, romance, and murder. The author, with consummate skill, has imbued every page with layers of narrative, creating a tapestry that ensnares the reader's imagination. It is a rich tapestry, woven with threads of storytelling that coalesce into a resplendent narrative whole.
If, perchance, you are already an admirer of Nancy Bilyeau's literary catalogue, you will readily concur that "The Orchid Hour" is a compulsory addition to your reading repertoire. It serves as a magnum opus of historical fiction, a testament to the author's talent for transporting her readers to bygone epochs, ensnaring them in a world replete with vibrant characters and enigmatic mysteries. Bilyeau's storytelling prowess shines brilliantly in this offering, earning its rightful place in the pantheon of her literary accomplishments.
All in all, "The Orchid Hour" is a literary sojourn into Prohibition-era New York City, replete with its beguiling characters, historical precision, and masterful storytelling. Nancy Bilyeau's latest work is a testament to her unwavering dedication to historical authenticity and her unmatched capacity to infuse life into bygone eras. This narrative beckons to readers who are enamoured with historical fiction, offering an immersive and captivating journey that transcends time and place.
In the realm of "The Orchid Hour," Nancy Bilyeau has created a tale that endures—a timeless narrative of transformation and resolute action against the backdrop of the Jazz Age. In her vivid prose, readers discover a heroine who defies convention and a narrative that ensnares the senses. For those who cherish the written word, this book is nothing short of a literary gem, to be cherished and revisited in perpetuity.
Inspired by my lifelong love of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" and my more recent interest in the Morgan Library in New York, I wrote The Ghost of Madison Avenue, a novella set in 1912 NYC.
I'd always loved a Christmas ghost story. Much of the novella takes place at J. P. Morgan’s Library, at Madison and 36th Street, one of my favorite haunts (so to speak!) in New York City. In 1912, it was not a museum — it was where financier Morgan spent much of his time, as did his brilliant head librarian, Belle da Costa Greene. After I wrote this in 2019, I was excited to see an explosion of interest in Belle, such as the 2021 historical novel The Personal Librarian.
But one of my other chief motivations was to tell the story of an Irish-American family. My main character, Helen O'Neill, is a young widow with certain gifts that she herself doesn't understand. I've dedicated this novella to my mother, whose maiden name was Mary Elizabeth O'Neill. She grew up in Chicago, not New York. But in both places, the Irish experience is a rich, textured, dramatic one. It was wonderful to write about it!
Mariah Fredericks, author of The Lindbergh Nanny and the upcoming The Wharton Plot, said about the novella:
"The Gilded Age splendors of the Morgan Library come to life in this wonderful, warm-hearted tale of Christmases past, present, and future. Bilyeau weaves a wealth of gorgeous period detail into her ghost story of old New York, delivering genuine chills, family drama, and poignant romance with equal skill. A gorgeous holiday treat!"
So if you're in the mood to read a Christmas ghost story, think of mine!
%20Out%20now.png)
%20Out%20now.png)
.png)
.png)
