Precious Pawn

By Mary Martin Devlin

"Can fortune fail to shine on a face like that?"

Hearing rumors of his daughter Diane's extraordinary beauty, the charming but profligate comte de Fautrière removes the thirteen-year-old from her convent school in the provinces and takes her to Paris. Blossoming in the fashion and excitement of life at court, Diane captures the roving eye of the King himself and seems balanced on the brink of a fabulous career that could save her family's fortunes. But it takes more than a beautiful face to negotiate the intrigues of court. Caught between the desire to please her father and friends and her own awakening passions, she plays at love with a handsome Swiss baron and is drawn into a dangerous infatuation with a nobleman whose prospects are no surer than her own. Diane struggles to become something other than a pawn in other people's games but not playing by the rules will have consequences more serious than she can imagine.

Drawing on the unpublished memoir of an eighteenth-century countess whose spectacular beauty seemed to promise a charmed life, the haunting story of Diane de Fautrière unfolds among a fabulous cast of characters in the licentious, debauched world of the court of Louis XV.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cuidono Press
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9780991121571

Mary Martin Devlin

For several years in the eighties, Mary Martin Devlin lectured in francophone Africa for the United States Information Agency. During one of those tours she met, and later married, the legendary CIA officer, Larry Devlin, in Kinshasa, Zaire. Because of his many years in Africa, she was welcomed in his circles of friends in all levels of Zairian society. She spent many hours with Mobutu, his family, and his entourage as well as with opposition leaders eager to share their grievances. After leaving Africa, she didn't want to forget what life was like there: the breathtaking beauty of the country along with its squalor and misery, the chronic political maneuvering, the abusive power of corporations like big oil, and, of course, the expatriate life. In all those years, the individuals who touched her the most were the Europeans who had grown up in Zaire, the children of missionaries, for example, or of Belgian colonials. They felt like foreigners in Europe, they believed with all their heart that Africa was their home, and they were devoted to Zaire and optimistic about its future. When she decided to write this novel, she knew that it would revolve around the plight of one of these Europeans.