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    Banquet of Lies
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    Banquet of Lies
    Unavailable
    Banquet of Lies
    Ebook314 pages4 hours

    Banquet of Lies

    By Michelle Diener

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A young noblewoman flees to London and poses as a servant to evade a murderer in this richly detailed and “compelling” (Publishers Weekly) historical novel.

    A SECRET TREATY AND A SECRET LIFE

    LONDON, 1812: Giselle Barrington is living a double life, juggling the duties of chef with those of spy catcher. She must identify her father’s savage killer before the shadowy man finds her and uncovers the explosive political document her father entrusted to her safekeeping.

    Posing as a French cook in the home of Lord Aldridge, Giselle is surrounded by unlikely allies and vicious enemies. In the streets where she once walked freely among polite society, she now hides in plain sight, learning the hard lessons of class distinction and negotiating the delicate balance between servant and master.

    Lord Aldridge’s insatiable curiosity about his mysterious new chef blurs the line between civic duty and outright desire. Carefully watching Giselle’s every move, he undertakes a mission to figure out who she really is—and, in the process, plunges her straight into the heart of danger when her only hope for survival is to remain invisible.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGallery Books
    Release dateOct 22, 2013
    ISBN9781451684469
    Unavailable
    Banquet of Lies
    Author

    Michelle Diener

    Michelle Diener has always had a passion for reading and writing. She began writing stories when her parents gave her a typewriter for her twelfth birthday, and she hasn’t stopped since. Born in London and raised in South Africa, she now lives on the west coast of Australia with her husband and two small children.

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    Reviews for Banquet of Lies

    3.5/5

    15 ratings4 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      I read this book several years ago and thought highly of it. I re-read it and was sadly a little let down. It still has a fun story line but it’s this constant struggle for Gigi to decide what to do. Who to trust, who to give this document to. I don’t really understand that. She’s with a man (her employer) she says she trusts yet she doesn’t turn to him. Instead she turns to a man she met once (at her employers house so they are obviously friends) and things is the infamous “D” bc that’s what his last name starts with ?. I know this drags out the story and actually give you one but it just made the storyline a little muddy for me. Then after all that. All the kisses and tension (which lets be honest wasn’t that strong or impassioned). It ends with 1 line. No real deceleration or love or passionate embrace. It left me wishing the story had a little more to the ending.
    • 4/5
      I finished the book in a day, I just read and read, and then I read some more. I almost did it in one sitting too if I had not had to go grocery shopping.

      There is a lightness over the writing that makes the pages fly on by. And then there is the suspense/mystery/drama that just makes it impossible to put it down. Here it's cos the heroine, Giselle is hiding from the man who killed her father and she has important information too. It's a cat and mouse game, and it's thrilling.

      If I compare it to the other regency book she has written then yes I did love The Emperor's Secret a bit more. But that was cos of the heroine's past and the heartache it left me in. Still this book was awesome and it was not as dark when it came to certain things. It also made me want so much more, and I already know someone she totally should write about. But then that is how ES left me too. Wanting so much more, so please, write more :D

      Honestly I had the best sentence in my head, it would have made the review. Alas now it's gone but that is how a good book usually leaves me unable to write a coherent review.

      Giselle was great, brave and even if she said she was a mouse, then she certainly was a courageous mouse. Jonathan was in a way a sort of beta hero, dunno why I say that really. But in the best possible way. She was the heroine in the book after all.

      A cat and mouse game in a rich setting. Danger and romance is promised. And it makes Michelle Diener the go to woman for these sort of books. A good book makes you want more, but a great book makes you crave more. And this one was great.
    • 3/5
      I did enjoy the historical and cultural details the author included into this book. The spy trade during this timeframe was fascinating, seeing the different countries jockey for position as seen through the eyes of our characters. Seeing the intimate way in which a big houses (well, semi-big I guess since the main setting was a smaller townhouse) was ran and the small details in the cooking and food were fascinating as well. I enjoyed seeing this view of Regency England come to life, a world hidden from view and that shines a light on the regular person, not the nobility and the ton. I enjoyed seeing Gigi pose as a cook to hide from her pursuer and to try to carry on her father's mission. I felt like that took a lot of guts and confidence in her cooking to able to pull that off. Yet, there was a bit of a letdown in the character department as well. I did find that Gigi forgot some very key details in her disguise like how she approaches people, nobility vs. servant, and her many missions outside the home seemed bumbling at times. Actually, that could be applied to many of the other characterizations as well. The scene where the butler is ogling the maid's assets and stumbles down the stairs.... Really?! I did enjoy the historical/cultural details in this book, and really the story overall was fairly enjoyable. It's just the characterizations that seemed to lack in this Regency addition. Gigi had some redeemable qualities like pluck and courage; yet, her smarts and handling of situations didn't always measure up. And other characters suffered from archetypes and almost slap-stick handling as well. I'm glad this wasn't my introduction to the Regency series; I probably wouldn't have read on. But, it's a nice way to kill some time, I guess.
    • 2/5
      After Giselle witnesses the death of her father, she’s forced to go into hiding in order to find out more about the document for which he was killed for. The document that her father entrusted to her right before he died. She takes a position as a French cook in the house of Lord Aldridge yet she struggles in this position, not used to being a lesser servant. Once she discovers that it’s a political document that could very well change the fate of England she seeks to get it into the right hands but that’s easier said than done.I loved the concept of the plot yet the characters were damn near unbearable, most especially Miss Giselle "Gigi" Barrington. Yeah, that’s a mouthful. Instead of being a charming and funny lady that struggled with her temporary change in social class she was snooty, pretentious and completely unlikable. At one point she wakes up to go down into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee only to discover the coffee that was in the house had gone bad so she practically demands that coffee be purchased even though Lord Aldridge was not a coffee drinker."...trying to deny her coffee, was a declaration of war." Oh, shut up, Gigi and come off your high horse. Now I’m all about my caffeine too so I get it but I’ve never reached the point where I was about to go all Napoleon on everyone just because I didn’t get a cup. Plus, it’s like she was constantly forgetting WHY she was in the situation she was in. I mean hello, you watched your father get stabbed to death just a few short weeks ago and that same man is searching for you yet you’re waging war over coffee. Priorities, my dear. So this story could have been vastly more interesting if Giselle wasn’t such a stuck up snob.The romance between Gigi and Lord Aldridge was something that was completely unnecessary and only added to the overly dramatic flair this book had going on. The two knew each other when they were children but it was mentioned that Gigi was always ignored in favor of her gorgeous mother and that Lord Aldridge was always flirting with her even though she was almost twice his age. Yeah, that doesn’t set up some major awkwardness. You never noticed me when I was younger because you were too busy flirting with my mother? Oh gross, no thanks. So because of his complete lack of awareness of Giselle in her earlier years, he doesn’t even recognize her now so she’s able to slip into the position as Cook in his household. Oh, but naturally there’s something intriguing about her that interests him. Maybe because she’s grown up and looks more like her mother?Bottom line, I loved the political aspects and the espionage and the fact that Giselle was introduced as a headstrong and confident woman but anything interesting about this book slowly dissolved the more snooty Giselle got and the more ridiculous Lord Aldridge got over the crush on his cook. Simply didn’t work for me unfortunately.