At Daggers Drawn

In 1756, Europe is ruled by women. One of the most powerful is Madame de Pompadour, legendary mistress of Louis XV. While searching for a way to displace the Favorite, Pompadour s mortal enemy, the Duchess de Lauraguais, stumbles upon a potential lover for Louis in the person of the sensual and talented Diane Vauclin, queen of the Paris stage. Lauraguais knows that the actress can match the Favorite's talents in the salons of Versailles, but can mount an even more formidable challenge to the king's fragile mistress on a field where she can no longer fight -- in the king's bed. In the doing, Lauraguais discovers other secrets that will assuage her anger at someone much closer to her heart. The handsome and gallant Alexandre Devereaux continues to reject her affections while remaining enthralled to the memory of a woman he believes long dead. But Devereaux's lost love turns out to be very much alive. The beautiful Diane is in actuality Jennet MacKenna, the woman Alexandre once loved enough to marry secretly in defiance of the king s interdiction, and who was then forced "to die" and begin a new existence in order to save herself. As Lauraguais's plot comes within a hair's breadth of succeeding, no one realizes that she has loosed other unanticipated consequences that will alter France and open the door to Revolution. At Daggers Drawn is a captivating story of ambition, intrigue and the madness of love denied told against the backdrop of the rugged shores of Canada and the gilded salons of Versailles.

Liz Forrest is a native Virginian who spent sixteen years in New York City as an actress, opera singer, writer and "other" before moving to the peaceful wilds of the Delaware Highlands of Pennsylvania in order to devote more time to writing. Story telling in both the oral and written traditions has always been part of her life, as has a passion for history and folklore. Besides having completed two novels and substantial work on a third and fourth, Liz has served as dramaturgist and script doctor for productions staged by various stage companies in both New York and Pennsylvania.