num_pages: 319
description: As Marie Louise de Bourbon, niece of Louis XIV, journeys south from Versailles to marry the Spanish king, she is forced to abandon the cumbersome orange trees brought from her beloved Versailles, leaving them to wither in the chill Pyrenees. This loss presages the future that awaits her, in a court riven by intrigue, with an impotent husband who demands an heir. Marieās fate is dreamed of by Francisca de Luarca, as she sits in her prison cell far from the Queenās chamber. This imaginative Castilian silk grower's daughter has fallen passionately and dangerously in love with a young priest. In this luscious, hypnotic novel, Kathryn Harrison twists together their stories, bringing to vivid life the wonders and the horrors of 17th-century Spain, a world convulsed by poverty and religious upheaval.
language: English
title: A Thousand Orange Trees
titlecomplete: A Thousand Orange Trees
characters: Marie Louise d'Orleans, Charles II of Spain, Louis XIV of France
genres: Historical, Literature, Novels, Spain, 17th Century, France, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Adult Fiction, Contemporary
ratings_count: 867
places: Versailles, Paris, Madrid
publisher: HarperCollins