Atria Books
April 2014
On Sale: April 8, 2014
Featuring: René le Florentin; Jac L’Etoile
385 pages ISBN: 1451621531 EAN: 9781451621532 Kindle: B00DPM9088 Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
An orphan named René le Florentin is plucked from poverty to
become Catherine de
Medici’s perfumer. Traveling with the young duchessina from
Italy to France, René
brings with him a cache of secret documents from the
monastery where he was trained:
recipes for exotic fragrances and potent medicines—and a
formula for an alchemic
process said to have the potential to reanimate the dead.
In France, René becomes not only the greatest perfumer in
the country, but also the
most dangerous, creating deadly poisons for his Queen to use
against her rivals. But
while mixing herbs and essences under the light of
flickering candles, René doesn’t
begin to imagine the tragic and personal consequences for
which his lethal potions
will be responsible.
Paris, France—The Present:
A renowned mythologist, Jac L’Etoile—trying to recover from
personal heartache by
throwing herself into her work—learns of the sixteenth-
century perfumer who may have
been working on an elixir that would unlock the secret to
immortality. She
becomesobsessed with René le Florentin’s work—particularly
when she discovers the
dying breaths he had collected during his lifetime.
Jac’s efforts put her in the path of her estranged lover,
Griffin North, a linguist
who has already begun translating René le Florentin’s
mysterious formula. Together
they confront an eccentric heiress in possession of a world-
class art collection, a
woman who has her own dark purpose for the elixir . . . for
which she believes the
ends will justify her deadly means.
This mesmerizing gothic tale zigzags from the violent days
of Catherine de Medici’s
court to twenty-first-century France. Fiery and lush, set
against deep, wild forests
and dimly lit chateaus, The Collector of Dying Breaths
illuminates the true path to
immortality: the legacies we leave behind.
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