Louise de La Vallière
About this audiobook
Following The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After, Dumas continued his D'Artagnan romances with a final trilogy set during the reign of Louis XIV. Louise de La Vallière, the second novel in that trilogy, continues the suspense which began with The Vicomte de Bragelonne and will end with The Man in the Iron Mask. Filled with behind-the-scenes political intrigues and set against a tender love story, the novel brings the aging Musketeers out of retirement to face an impending crisis within the royal court of France.
It is 1661, and King Louis XIV is strengthening France's military, preparing to undermine superintendent of finance Nicolas Fouquet at the behest of wily social-climber Jean-Baptiste Colbert. D'Artagnan has assumed command of the king's Musketeers while Aramis has risen to the top of the Jesuit order. Meanwhile, Porthos remains tied to the military, and the wealthy Athos is concerned with the affairs of his son, Raoul, who finds himself smitten with the lovely Louise de la Vallière.
As always, Dumas brings French history to life with excitement and romance.
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About the author
Alexander Dumas was born in 1802 at Villes-Cotterets. He received very little education but when he entered the household of the future king, Louis-Philippe, he began to read veraciously and then to write. In 1839 he began writing novels dealing with the wars of religion and the Revolution, but he is most remembered for his historical novels, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.
Simon Vance is the critically acclaimed narrator of approximately 400 audiobooks, winner of 27 AudioFile Earphones Awards, and a 12-time Audie Award-winner. He won an Audie in 2006 in the category of Science Fiction and was named the 2011 Best Voice in Biography and History and in 2010 Best Voice in Fiction by AudioFile magazine. Vance has been a narrator for the past 25 years, and also worked for many years as a BBC Radio presenter and newsreader in London. Some of his best-selling and most praised audiobook performances include Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies (an Audie award-winner), Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander series (all 21 titles), the new productions of Frank Herbert’s original Dune series, and Rob Gifford’s China Road (an AudioFile 2007 Book of the Year). Vance lives near San Francisco with his wife and two sons.
