An atrocious poet teams up with an American widow to prevent Napoleon's invasion of England.

"A richly imagined and stunningly inventive story of love, art, and betrayal in Paris of the 20's, 30's, and 40's"--

A tale set in early 19th-century England, Paris and New York follows the endeavors of a noble orphan who, after being thrown out of her ancestral home by a vicious half-sibling, makes her way to Paris, where she takes in abused streetwalkers and transforms them into upper-crust courtesans in an exclusive bordello.

"In Poland in 1891, Marie Curie (then Marya Sklodowska) was engaged to a budding mathematician, Kazimierz Zorawski. But when his mother insisted she was too poor and not good enough, he broke off the engagement. A heartbroken Marya left Poland for Paris, where she would attend the Sorbonne to study chemistry and physics. Eventually Marie Curie would go on to change the course of science forever and be the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. But what...