Limited-Time Deal: 'The Blue' Is Free

I'm thrilled to let people know that they can download my novel, THE BLUE, for free until July 5. It's the first book in my Genevieve Planche series. 

Joffe Books set a three-day deal on the ebook of THE BLUE, coordinating with BookBub on a promotion. 

Here's the Publishers Weekly review from the time of its publication in 2018: 

Genevieve Planché, the appealing 24-year-old narrator of this intriguing thriller from Bilyeau (The Crown), longs to be a painter at a time, 1759, when “female sensibilities” are considered “too delicate for art.” Reluctantly, she accepts a job as a decorator at the Derby Porcelain Works, but before setting off from her London home, she’s approached by dashing Sir Gabriel Courtenay, who asks her to spy on the new chemist at the factory, Thomas Sturbridge, who has “created an entirely new shade of blue.” In exchange for this treachery, she’s promised enough money to set herself up as a painter in Venice. After agreeing to this scheme, she comes to realize that the quest for the new blue can alter the destiny of a king and create works of awesome beauty but also lead to kidnapping, betrayal, and murder. Fascinating details include glimpses of the newly opened British Museum, a Christmas party at the home of William Hogarth, and Madame de Pompadour’s residence at Versailles. Historical fans will be well satisfied.

I was fortunate enough to win endorsements for THE BLUE from some wonderful authors:

'Definitely a winner!' -- Kate Quinn, bestselling historical novelist

'Fascinating' -- Ian Rankin, author of the top-selling Rebus mystery series

'Bilyeau is an impressive talent who brings to life a heart-stopping story of adventure, art and espionage.' - Stephanie Dray, author of My Dear Hamilton.

‘...transports the reader into the heart of the 18th-century porcelain trade—where the price of beauty was death.’ - E.M. Powell, author of the Stanton & Barling medieval mystery series.

'With rich writing, surprising twists, and a riveting sense of 'you are there,' The Blue is spine-tingling entertainment.' – Gayle Lynds, New York Times bestselling author of The Assassins

To download an e-book in the US: here.

To download an ebook in the UK: here.

To download an ebook in Canada: here

To download an ebook in Australia: here.

A New Design for My Genevieve Planché Series

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.

Here they are:

I hope you like the new look of the series!

To kick off the series and find new readers, The Blue's ebook is discounted at 99 cents (or pence). 

Cover Reveal of 'The Versailles Formula'

 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.

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You can preorder the book today!

The Unbearable Beauty of a Sevres Porcelain Ship

My novel The Blue sends the main character, Huguenot artist Genevieve Planche, into the heart of the porcelain business that thrived in Enlightenment Europe. It is a spy story, a love story--and also a story of art.

This is not about making plates and cups and other dishes, although in the 18th century wealthy people did use their porcelain at the table.

The celebrated Sevres pieces of the 1750s are ravishing. They are works of beauty, but so elaborate and decorated that it's like eating too much rich candy. You feel as if you could get a stomach ache looking at Sevres porcelain. And you'd still enjoy it.

Madame de Pompadour

The preeminent porcelain factory, or workshop, of the time was that of Sevres, near Versailles in France. It was the patronage of Madame de Pompadour, the elegant and cultured mistress of Louis XV, that powered Sevres. Without her, Sevres could not have survived. Fortunately for the many highly trained artists, sculptors, chemists and decorators employed there, Pompadour was obsessed with the factory.

It is difficult to even grasp the difficulty and expense of creating an intricate piece of Sevres soft-paste porcelain in the 1750s, when my novel takes place. Jean Hellot, the chief chemist, said the goal was to produce porcelain of such translucence it was like "squeezed snow." Then came the painters and the gilders.

I offer you as an example one type of porcelain Sevres produced: Pot pourri à vaisseau, or the pot pourri holder as a ship. These were produced from 1757 to the early 1760s. Frivolous to an extreme, they were exquisite--and decadent. While war raged and some French people were starving to death, enormous effort was put into these ultra-luxury objects. Supposedly they held the pot pourri people used in order to scent a room.

They were some of the largest pieces produced by the factory, and quite difficult to fire. They tended to collapse in the kiln. Only ten survive today. The one shown in the photo above is part of the collection of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, one of only four "ships" in the United States.

Resting on a gilded wooden base, it takes the form of a stylized boat, complete with rigging, port-holes and a flag. The lower part is decorated with a scene of sailors packing fish on the front, and a marine themed trophy on the back, painted by Jean-Louis Morin.

The scene of sailors preparing a boat, painted during this period, could only have been inspired by the Seven Years War, in which France and Austria battled England and Prussia. What was at stake was supremacy in Europe and the colonies spread across the world--would it be France or England? Historians say that Madame de Pompadour supported this war, and pushed her royal lover to declare it. But it was a loss for France, a turning point, and she was ultimately blamed.

The design of the vase is attributed to Jean-Claude Duplessis père. He was a a goldsmith, sculptor and ceramics modeller, bronze-founder and decorative designer who worked in the Rococo style. He invented these boats, which were cherished by Madame de Pompadour.

A number of boats survived the French Revolution, as did the factory itself. The Revolutionaries did not burn down Sevres but respected its talent. A little later, Napoleon and Josephine took pride in Sevres porcelain, as did Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III.

At the turn of the century, a wealthy Baltimore railroad magnate and collector named Henry Walters took a fancy to the ship, purchased it, and bequeathed it to the city in 1932.

Across the centuries, the porcelain ship still exerted a fascination for the wealthy. Some things just don't change. :)

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of the 18th century-set novel 'The Blue,' published on Dec. 3, 2018, in the US, the UK, Australia and Canada. The protagonist is a Huguenot artist living in Spitalfields who becomes a spy in a porcelain factory. Publishers Weekly said, "Historical fans will be well satisfied."

I'm on the Cover of The Big Thrill!

Very pleased to be on a magazine cover for the first time ever :) I was interviewed by Dawn Ius, an editor of The Big Thrill, on my new novel The Blue. How I got the idea for the book, the historical underpinnings of the 18th century, and creating the characters.

She concluded the feature with:

"The novel, both beautifully written and historically impressive, delivers surprises not only for the author, but for the reader as well, demonstrating just how much one is willing to suffer in pursuit and protection of their dreams."

To read the whole story, go here.

The Unhappiest Royal Marriage of all: George IV and Caroline of Brunswick

The wedding of Prince Harry to American actress Meghan Markle and the upcoming nuptials of another of Queen Elizabeth's grandchildren, Princess Eugenie, to Casamigos Tequila brand ambassador Jack Brooksbank make it clear that marriages in the English royal family are made for love.

It wasn't always this way.

For centuries, the monarchs of England married to forge alliances with other European countries, with the side benefit of dowries fat enough to fill depleted royal treasuries. For example, in 1662, Charles II's bride, Catherine of Braganza, was said to have brought with her a dowry of 2 million Portuguese crowns, plus the port of Tangiers.

Many of these marriages evolved into working partnerships within which some affection, and perhaps even love, developed.

But there were very unhappy ones too.

Three of Queen Elizabeth's four children divorced their first spouses, but this wasn't easily done in the past. Unhappy kings could imprison their queens, as Henry II did with Eleanor of Aquitaine, or execute them, as Henry VIII did with Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard (he managed to annul marriages to two other queens too).

George, Prince of Wales and later Prince Regent

In the annals of royal matrimony, however, there is nothing quite like the marriage of George IV to Princess Caroline of Brunswick. It kept going from bad to worse, until reaching the nadir of George's coronation on July 9, 1821, when at the age of 57 he finally succeeded George III.

Estranged from her husband and living abroad, Caroline returned to England to be crowned as Queen. She was told not to attempt entering Westminster Abbey for the ceremony but ignored that advice. Caroline arrived and attempted entry, but the Deputy Lord Chamberlain slammed the door in her face.

Caroline of Brunswick

After banging on the door and shouting that she belonged inside, Caroline stumbled back to her carriage. Later that night she fell ill, and she died three weeks later.

This tragedy began years earlier, in the 1790s, when Prince George realized he had no choice but to marry a princess. The heir to the throne had wracked up massive debts as an extravagant pleasure seeker.

St Margaret Church, Westminster Abbey, London

George IV served as Prince Regent (meaning he carried out the duties of the monarch due to his George III's unstable mental state) for ten years, but was not able to be crowned king in his own right until his father's death in 1820.

During this period, George III was still in possession of some of his wits -- and he seriously disapproved of his oldest son's lifestyle. The king sent letters "void of every expression of parental kindness or affection," said a contemporary.

To make matters even more difficult, George had entered into an illegal marriage at age 23. He wed a woman he was desperately in love with, Mrs. Maria Fitzherbert, a commoner, a widow, and a Catholic. It was against the law for a royal to marry without the monarch's consent and the spouse of a Catholic could not succeed, but he lived with her fairly openly for a number of years.

Maria Fitzherbert, secret wife of the heir to the throne

The prince's debts mounted, and his father remained intractable. Why should he pay for the lifestyle of a son without a family? Finally, George IV, who was tired of Maria in any case, informed his father he was ready to marry a fellow royal and start a family. His debt of £650,000 was cleared -- and his bride was secured.

Caroline, then 27, came from the minor royal German house of Brunswick. Many of the British monarchs of the 18th and 19th centuries married Germans, who were reliably Protestant.

Caroline was George's first cousin, since her mother was one of George III's sisters. The king, her father-in-law, always liked her -- much more than he liked his son.

Caroline in 1795, shortly before her marriage

But there were warning signs that she was not the best match for the heir to the throne. George, for all of his faults ("gluttony, drunkenness, and gambling," observed a courtier), was acknowledged as a man of great taste. He patronized artists and was himself a talented singer; he pushed for innovative architecture, and he was on the forefront of fashion.

Caroline was not very well educated, excitable, garrulous, and badly dressed. One biographer of George III wrote that she was "rumored to be dirty and extremely indiscreet and was undeniably no beauty."


Other observers at the time thought that she was well meaning and friendly, and would have calmed down and made a good wife if the man in question were a kind one. That's not, sadly, what Caroline got.

The couple met for the first time three days before the wedding date. George embraced her, then withdrew to a corner and called for brandy. Caroline, for her part, was taken aback by his appearance and behavior and said, "My God! Does the Prince always act like this? I think he's very fat and he's nothing like his portrait."


Having no choice, the two of them married on April 8, 1795. George drank so much that he spent most of his wedding night unconscious on the floor. It is said that in the first week of the marriage, the two of them had sex three times. And then...never again.


However, she had become pregnant, and Princess Charlotte was born nine months after the wedding (tragically, Charlotte would die at the age of 21 from complications during childbirth).

Just a few months after his marriage, George informed his father he wished to separate from his wife. King George III wrote to him, "You seem to look on your disunion with the Princess as merely of a private nature and totally put out of sight as Heir Apparent of the Crown your marriage is a public act."

But Caroline wanted out of the marriage as much as he did. She departed for the Continent in 1814. There she reportedly had affairs and perhaps even an illegitimate child. George of course had many affairs too, while trying to divorce his wife who he once called "the vilest wretch this world ever was cursed with."

The wedding of George, Prince of Wales, and princess Caroline of Brunswick officiated on April 8, 1795 in the Chapel Royal of St. James's Palace, London.

The public, however, took up Princess Caroline cause, sympathizing with her plight. English writer and chronicler William Hazlitt said, "It was the only question I have ever known that excited a thorough popular feeling. It struck its roots into the heart of the nation; it took possession of every house or cottage in the kingdom."

Even after he became king, George IV could not manage to get a divorce. Caroline had decided to return to England and take her place as Queen of England. A desperate George offered her a large bribe to stay on the Continent, which she refused.

The spectacle of her being turned away from Westminster Abbey while pounding on the door and shouting, "I am your Queen!" was an enormous scandal of the time.

Caroline died at the age of 53. Her funeral was a scene of general chaos, with an outraged public throwing bricks at soldiers who tried to keep order.

At her request, she was buried in her native Brunswick in a tomb bearing the inscription "Here lies Caroline, the Injured Queen of England."

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of the Joanna Stafford trilogy, historical thrillers set in the 16th century, published in 9 countries, and the upcoming historical novel "The Blue," a suspense story set in the art and porcelain world of 18th century England and France.

Cover Reveal Day for "The Blue"!

Today is the day to share with everyone the cover of "The Blue," my historical thriller set in the 18th century that asks the question: What would you do for the most beautiful color in the world?

The cover was created by designers at Endeavour Quill, my UK-based publisher for the novel. I think they did a great job!

I can also share the very first endorsement blurb: ‘Bilyeau’s sumptuous tale of mystery and intrigue transports the reader into the heart of the 18th century porcelain trade—where the price of beauty was death.’ E.M. Powell, author of the Stanton & Barling medieval mystery series.

In this book, I plunge into the luxury-obsessed Georgian society of the 1750s, when someone would go bankrupt collecting porcelain. But it was also the time of a war with France, and spying between the two countries was flourishing. In "The Blue," these two worlds intersect, with a heroine, Genevieve Planche, drawn from the Huguenot Spitalfields neighborhood.

This book is a big departure for me, based on years of research, and I worked to develop some multi-faceted characters.

I need your support :) Please go to my brand new Goodreads page, and mark the novel "Want to Read." I'd be extremely grateful :)

The book will be published this Fall, in print and on digital in the UK and US. Details to follow...

Historical Novel Society: Announcement of My 18th Century Thriller

I'm so pleased that Historical Novel Society, in it quarterly publication Historical Novel Review, released the news of my upcoming novel, The Blue. I'm moving from the 16th century to the 18th century with this book, which revolves around a woman artist, a French Huguenot living in London, who gets caught up in a spying conspiracy to steal the formula for a new shade of the most beautiful color in the world.


The publication date right now is Fall 2018. Exact date to follow!

From HNS:

"Endeavour Ink, a new imprint of Endeavour Press, has bought Nancy Bilyeau's fourth novel, The Blue, a suspense novel set in the porcelain-workshop race for supremacy in 18th century England and France, for publication in the UK and US in print and digital formats." :):

2018 is going to be exciting. I will be sharing all sorts of things for the rest of the year--an extra chapter of The Tapestry that was cut from the book, one that contains Princess Mary; a prequel to the trilogy I've written; and special advance tidbits of The Blue. I'll release all of the information on how to get the goods through my newsletter, so if you haven't already, please sign up here. It will take just a minute. :) 

And stay tuned!!