First line: No one looks regal or elegant in their underclothes on a cold February morning, no matter how much lace or satin trims the garment, and the queen is no exception.

Summary: Giselle has started work as a tiring woman for Queen Marie Antoinette. It is a dream job. She works at the Palace of Versailles helping dress the most fashionable woman in the world. However, unrest is stirring in the country as revolution is brewing. With her loyalties divided between the man she loves and the queen she respects the line is thin for someone during this turbulent time.

My Thoughts: I requested this years ago when I first joined Netgalley. I planned to read it and never got around to it. It sounded just like something I would love but it did not happen. But recently I found an audiobook copy of it and decided I had some time to give it a shot. It was a good story that kept me interested. It has the terror of the French Revolution with the element of a love story intertwined. I was happy that I picked it up. I liked Giselle. She had difficult choices to make and she went by her conscience even though it could mean her life. I really did not like her fiancé though. But I would recommend it for someone who wants a love story with an exciting historical back drop.

FYI: A few sex scenes and lots of violence like beheadings.

In-depth French Revolution historical fiction from a POV often overlooked. Detailed, evocative view on the French Rev with a MC torn between politics & personal life.

The Wardrobe Mistress by Meghan Masterson delves into the French Revolution and follows a young woman with divided loyalties. The only thing that I expected walking into this book was that it would have clothing as a theme. Overall, The Wardrobe Mistress is a fast paced read that is romantic and thrilling. It’s a good selection to while an afternoon away with.

Giselle Aubry works as a tirewoman in Marie Antoinette’s court. She’s hoping to learn a bit more about designing dresses so that one day she can open her own shop and sell designs. Essentially a tirewoman helps to prepare the queen’s wardrobe but doesn’t dress the queen. She also helps repair clothes. Giselle provides information about what she observes to her uncle. Meanwhile, while heading home one day, she accidentally ends up caught up in a riot but meets this young man named Leon and the sparks are there. Leon is a revolutionary and quite interested in Giselle. And so, this book covers the beginnings of the French Revolution straight through the execution of Marie Antoinette.

I do wish The Wardrobe Mistress had delved a bit more into the clothing aspect and explored more of Giselle’s ambition to be a dressmaker. However, there’s just so much going on in this book. I get why maybe that wasn’t explored deeper, but it still is a disappointment. It was interesting to see Giselle’s interactions with prominent historical figures such as Robespierre and her uncle, the writer of Figaro.

Overall, if you want a quick read with a romance that has ups and downs, pick up The Wardrobe Mistress. It’ll absolutely whisk you away to France. Just don’t go in expecting a book that goes deeper than surface. This is still kind of a light read — given the subject matter.

I really enjoyed this book! For my students who like history but can't handle some of the longer tomes, this is a great fit. In the same vein of Michelle Moran, this is definitely a successful book.

DNF at 25%

The plot moved too slow for my taste. A quarter in and I didn't feel any compelling reason to keep reading. The author took too much time with "introductions", this book should've certainly introduced the conflict sooner and slowly unpacked what's to come.

The Wardrobe Mistress: A Novel of Marie Antoinette is actually Giselle Aubry’s story and she works for Marie Antoinette at a time of French Revolution. I do agree that Marie Antoinette’s name sells the book probably better, but it’s not fair to the readers. This story follows young Giselle in her position as one of queen’s wardrobe helpers and so through her eyes we follow the revolution from inside the palace and on the streets.

It’s not a bad story, it’s just has some things that ruin the flow of the story. It’s kind of a romance novel but at the same time it’s a history novel, but neither aren’t fully thought trough. The beginning of the story is very rocky and strange, but if you keep going despite that, the story gets better, there was a time when I was thinking that maybe the middle was written first and the beginning was added later, just so the following would have some kind of explanation. In a way it was a YA novel, that was happening at the time of French Revolution.

For a debut novel, it was a good one.

I'm disappointed that this book was not better executed in some ways. I was fascinated by the history and the details in the clothing and scenery were beautiful. I didn't mind the elements of romance, but I was shocked at how explicit the details of a certain "encounter" were rendered. I appreciated that it took a somewhat different approach to Marie Antoinette's personal character actions, but I can't get past how salacious the non-sequitur bedroom scene was.

3.5 Stars. The French Revolution is one of my favorite time periods to read about, not because I admire the way it went down--quite the opposite--but because it lends itself perfectly to historical fiction and trying to understand what it must have been like to live through such terror and uncertainty. I was drawn to The Wardrobe Mistress particularly for the perspective of a woman in charge of dressing Marie Antoinette.

From a comfortably upper middle-class family, Giselle is thrilled to earn a position in the queen's household. An aspiring dressmaker, she hopes to further her craft and establish the connections that could allow her to open her own business in the future. Though the queen is glamorous and pampered, Giselle sees firsthand the work it takes to make the queen formidable in the face of her enemies, and she witnesses the queen's sorrow as civil unrest grows and the king's enemies blame her for their problems. Giselle comes to admire and pity the queen, but when she falls in love with Leon, a young revolutionary, she is caught between her respect and admiration for the royals and the growing animosity from the lower classes, to whom she also feels some loyalty. Tasked by her uncle Beaumarchais to supply him with any information that might be pertinent to national security and challenged by Leon's increasing revolutionary fervor, Giselle must tread a careful path to avoid falling victim to political persecution. And when the mob becomes murderous, storming the palace and eventually capturing the king and queen, Giselle must find a way to avoid being taken down with them.

I don't know that there's anything new or revelatory here, but the graphic depictions of mob violence and the honest portrayal of the dangers of a civilized society becoming too polarized and politicized are frightening. And I appreciated the viewpoint of someone privy to the more intimate circumstances behind Louis XVI's and Marie Antoinette's actions. I'm a fan of romance, but I found the love story here to be too sweet, almost saccharine, and a little too much the focal point at times. There were a couple of twists toward the end that made for a more nuanced and poignant conclusion, though I did think the ending too abrupt. It needed one more chapter to give the reader--and the story--closure. But the story does a good job of capturing the paranoid, frenetic culture of the revolution and how an innocent young woman could unwittingly find herself on the wrong side of it. At times gay and glamorous, at others gritty and gruesome, The Wardrobe Mistress is a thought-provoking and entertaining read.

I honestly could tell by the writing of the first 2 chapters that it wouldn't be a good fit for our box and had to put it down. I may read it again in the future!

I found myself captivated by this novel while I was on summer vacation. Royal court intrigue, fashion, France in the 1890s, all of the ingredients are here to make for a page turning story and Meghan Masterson did not disappoint. Mary Antoinette is captured in all of her complexity through the eyes of Giselle, the Queen's undertirewoman and a woman with a foot both inside and outside the palace so the turbulent times are handled deftly and with obvious knowledge of the era. I'm looking forward to another novel by this author.

The Wardrobe Mistress by Megan Masterson is the story of Marie Antionette from the point of view of one if her undertiere women. I loved this story and couldn't put it down. The perspective was one that saw both sides of the revolution. I love books on royalty and this one did not dissapoint.

Giselle Aubry is an undertirewoman for Marie Antoinette. She gets a big salary and lives at the most fashionable court at Versailles. However, when the French Revolution occurs, Giselle is asked to spy on Marie Antoinette for her uncle, who was once a spy for Louis XV. While she is spying on Marie Antoinette, Giselle falls for a revolutionary named Leon. However, she still sympathizes with the queen. Thus, Giselle is torn between her duty to the royal family while warming up to ideas and hopes for the revolution.

Giselle is idealistic. She dreams of having her own clothing shop one day. She also welcomes the French Revolution because of the change in the air. However, she is very sympathetic to the Queen and does not like how the pamphlets have portrayed her. When she has the opportunity to spy for her uncle, she takes it thinking it could be a great adventure. However, she learns that there is more than she bargained for. While I liked Giselle for most of the novel, there were times that I thought she was a bit indecisive. However, I found her to be a very relatable character because she struggled to make the right decision despite the tough circumstances she found herself in.

Overall, this book is about love, loyalty, and duty. While I thought that Giselle and Leon were fully developed, I thought the others were flat. I thought the romance between Giselle and Leon were a bit too instant love for my taste, and I wanted their relationship to have developed more slowly. The plot was slow moving. Also, the novel suffers from too much telling rather than showing. Because of this, I felt like I was reading more of a textbook than a novel. However, I thought the author did a great job with the historical details as well as the issues set in the novel. Therefore, this is a must-read for fans of Marie Antoinette! I recommend this novel for fans of Madame Tussaud, The Time-Traveling Fashionista at the Palace of Marie Antoinette, and Becoming Marie Antoinette.

Alas it was archived before I got chance to read it.

I love reading about Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution and I have read many historical fiction novels set during this time-from the not so enjoyable Farewell My Queen by Chantal Thomas to the very entertaining Marie Antoinette trilogy by Juliet Grey. This one falls somewhere in the middle. I enjoyed the viewing of events from an outsider perspective angle but as others have stated, the ending did feel a little rushed. Still, I found Giselle to be an intriguing character and very much enjoyed her viewpoint.

Very well written novel of the later days of Marie Antoinette. Written from the point of view of one of her tirewomen, the doomed queen is portrayed sensitively. The atmosphere of the French Revolution, the storming of the Bastille, and the subsequent end of the queen is historically accurate and engrossing. Recommended.

I think that writing a book about a woman that worked at the Versailles and got to see firsthand the event's right before the French Revolution and during the revolution was a great idea. Giselle Aubry works as an untertirewoman for Marie Antoinette meant that she could both see how the people rose up against the royal family and at the same time she could also follow how the royal family dealt with it. This is the best part of the book, with Giselle being torn between being loyal to the royal family, but at the same time warming to the revolutionary ideas. I found the book great when it dealt with the actual historical events, like the failed escape plan, and the execution of the King and Queen.

However, it's the love story between Leon Gauvain and Giselle that just didn't work for me. I found myself quite uninterested in that side story, and to be honest, I skimmed through most of their "romance", especially when problems arise between them. But, towards the end did their relationship work a bit better for me, but that's probably because it coincided with the end of the monarchy. I did feel that the book ending was a bit abrupt. I would have loved an epilogue, because, despite me not being fond of the romance did I like Giselle and would have liked to know how her life turned out after the event at the end of the book.

The Wardrobe Mistress is a good book about the French revolution. You get to see both sides, Louis XV and Marie Antoinette's versus and the revolutionists and between them Giselle who, despite wanting a change still cared for the royal couple.

With this novel, the author's first, she offers readers a new take on a dark period in French history. Through the point of view of a young under-tirewoman named Giselle, the author sweeps readers into the innermost sanctuary of Queen Marie Antoinette. France is ripe with fear and suspicion at every turn. Everyone is watching everyone, and Giselle is no exception. Her uncle uses her as a spy, thrusting Giselle on a very difficult path because of her fondness for the queen. Through Giselle we see the goodness and innocence of the much maligned Marie Antoinette. As Giselle's loyalty to her queen grows stronger, so does the treacherous plot she finds herself in.

I loved the intimacy of how the events of the French Revolution were relayed. Giselle's narrative is compelling and drew me in. There is suspense, romance, and many surprises along the way. A novel that kept me highly entertained.

For such a fascinating period of history, I felt that this book was rather lacking in excitement. It tells the story of Giselle, a tirewoman for Marie Antoinette, during the early days of the French Revolution. There was a lot of scope here for fabulous episodes of the revolution to be described from the eyes of a witness to the events. Unfortunately, it was all just a little bit too clinical. Rather than being swept away by the passion of the crowd, the action is a too lacklustre and I felt too removed. Having said that, the characters were well drawn and sympathetic, if a little bit stereotypical at times and I thought that the author did a very good job of describing the palaces and the dresses. I think the main problem was the pacing. A single chapter would cover a few months of the year, which lead to a feeling of discontinuity for me. Overall, I would say that this is a perfectly fine book about the French Revolution, but it didn't blow me away.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

As a quick, undemanding read about the French Revolution, The Wardrobe Mistress is fine. It zips along, the writing is clean, you get a sense of what it was like to work for Marie Antoinette at this time. I expected more depth, though; it read like an old-school YA novel until we reached the purple, overblown scene in which our narrator loses her virginity to the young man she loves. The characters were two-dimensional at best, and some of their reactions seemed out of character, created just to serve as plot devices. And the title is misleading: The narrator and main character isn't a wardrobe mistress but rather some who works under the wardrobe mistress.

The Wardrobe Mistress is a story about a bloody French Revolution. However, it is far from usual story, talking about the conflict of a woman between loyalty to her employer and her sovereign and his wife, and to the revolution that is supposed to bring equality to France.

When I was in school, we were told that Marie Antoinette was the one that said, “Let them eat cake.” When I was older though, I figured out that was taken from somewhere else and put in her mouth. However, I never imagined her as a person who suffered, even though she had so much wealth. The book shows how the Revolution affected her and shows that she was aware of what people went through.

We are told about Marie Antoinette by one of her servants, Giselle. As I mentioned before, she is torn between supporting the revolution and supporting Marie Antoinette. She spies on her Queen for her uncle and yet continues to try to comfort the Queen when seeing how the events happening trouble her. Robespierre and some other prominent revolutionaries are also present in the story, especially near the ending, when the events turn out tragically for the King and Queen.

Giselle and her lover/fiancée are torn apart when she hides secret about her involvement in the escape plan of the royal family. The romance plot is always submissive to the historical developments and it is a nice addition that shows how the revolution affected even normal people, not just the top revolutionaries and nobles.