From
the internationally bestselling author, a lush and imaginative novel
that crisscrosses time as passion and obsessions collide
Florence, Italy—1533:
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.
