Nancy Bilyeau used to live in Tudor England. Now she lives in Georgian England
(with side trips to Gilded Age New York). I say this because her books are so meticulously researched that the reader feels he is reading an actual narrative from the past, and that’s a very good feeling indeed. We’re transported to 1760s London, the silk-design shop of Genevieve Sturbridge, the heroine of
The Blue, a fearless, determined woman whose aspirations to be an artist got her entangled once in a world of spying and intrigue, shifting allegiances and yes, murder and will do so again in short order in
The Fugitive Colors.
The difference is that this time Genevieve has a business and a family to protect, so that her room to maneuver against the various forces trying to entrap her in their webs is even more circumscribed, the stakes that much higher. And the cast of villains and artists which Bilyeau blends so well is that much richer. What are the fugitive colors? Let’s just say that the outisize ambitions of the premiere English artist of hos day, Sir Joshua Reynolds come into play, as well as a host of artists jostling for his spot. And did I mention the king of France? And the Bow Street Runners? And Casanova? It’s a heady brew that Bilyeau mixes up, served up in the finest of crystalline prose.
