He would stand in front of a mirror to scrutinize his face, to see if his teeth stuck out or if he looked timid. Also, at times she employs an omniscient narrator to tell the leading events of the Revolution, and these parts can sound like a history book, although they are never dry or boring. She also gets away with switching tenses and generally leaving the reader to work out what's happening by herself. She is a staunch supporter of the monarchy and a devout Catholic, after Danton has become an atheist and abandoned his early belief that France should have a king.

She moves from past to present tense and from third person to first person narration, with the occasional instance of addressing the reader directly. I know you, he said, you'll be tired of it within a day or two, you have to take care of them, they're not dolls you know.

It was a good, old, family name, he told Jacqueline's mother; it was a good, old family to which her daughter now belonged.

Robespierre and other members of the Committee of Public Safety have them arrested, along with various thieves and financial schemers in whose plots Danton was involved. The New House smells of resin and wax polish; it has the sulphurous odor of family quarrels brewing. The sections where we follow Camille, culminating in the storming of the Bastille, are delightful and show him in all his charm and lack of discipline. Now that the last red tile has been laid on the roof of the New House, now that the marriage contract is four years old.My first book was pure wish fulfilment, about a girl who became a dancer, and with the recent publication of a ballet trilogy – Born to Dance, Star Quality and Showtime – I seem to have come full circle.