The Modern Fairies

Why don't they tell you it is the beautiful princess who becomes the evil queen; that they are just the same person at different points in their story?Versailles, 1682. It's a city of the rich, a living fairy-tale, Louis XIV's fever dream. It's a place of opulence, beauty, and power. But strip back the lavish exterior of polite society, and you'll find a dark undercurrent of vicious gossip and secrets. Nobody is safe here - no matter how highly born they are.Nobody knows this better than Madame Marie d'Aulnoy. Each week, a rogue group - elites, intellectuals, mostly women - gather at her Parisian home. Finding comfort and creative camaraderie, the group act out Contes de Fées - fairy tales - at a salon that will change the course of literature forever. But among the members, a wolf is lurking. A force more dangerous than any they could conjure in their tales, watching, waiting, reporting, and threatening to destroy them one by one.Brilliant and bawdy, witty and provocative, and inspired by real events, THE MODERN FAIRIES is a dazzling novel about scandals and secrets, and the delights and dangers of storytelling in dark times.'Pollard's future, as a novelist, is very bright indeed' The i, praise for Delphi