Melissa Ashley

If you love fairytales and historical fiction set in France, then The Bee and the Orange Tree by Melissa Ashley will interest you. Set in the salons of Paris and commencing in 1699 during the reign of the Sun King Louis XIV, this story is based on the life of Baroness Marie Catherine D’Aulnoy and her friend, socialite and heiress Madame Nicola Tiquet.

Marie Catherine was a storyteller and author known for coining the term 'fairytale' and The Bee and the Orange Tree focusses on her life, in addition to that of her daughter Angelina and friend Nicola Tiquet. Those familiar with the fate of Madame Angelique-Nicole Tiquet may be interested in this fictionalised account of her life, while simultaneously finding the conditions of her circumstances hard to process.

Imagining the literary salons of Paris in the seventeenth century was intoxicating and the list of family and character names at the beginning of the novel was extremely useful. In this novel about female agency and the power of story, our characters struggle with overbearing males in their lives:

"She'd lost count of the conversations they had shared about brutish husbands. She repeated the advice she always delivered at their end: you are more capable - of creating meaning, of finding pleasure - than you allow yourself to believe." Page 22

While seeming more appropriate for today's characters than 300 years ago, this advice is freely given, yet has surprising and unintended consequences for our characters.

The writing in The Bee and the Orange Tree by Melissa Ashley is luscious and evocative and reading it felt like an indulgence. We're also treated to some striking moments like this one:

"As the only tree standing in the field of her mother's fury, she was preparing to be lashed by strong winds, vulnerable to a fiery lightning strike." Page 291

Written by an Australian author and published in 2019, the title of this book comes from a fairytale of the same name written by Marie Catherine D’Aulnoy and published in 1697 and it really works. My reading experience would have been enhanced if I'd known the book was based on real figures from history; that understanding only arrived afterwards with the Author's Note at the end.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to visit one of the literary salons of France in the 1600s or enjoy the work of Kate Forsyth with regard to fairytales, The Bee and the Orange Tree by Melissa Ashley is for you.… (mere)

I found the setting of the story of greater interest than the detail of the work done by the naturalist and her daughters. The 18th century attitudes of Dutch society towards women, their involvement in science and business were of interest. I also found it interesting to learn more of the Dutch colonisation and seafaring enterprises. Although the author wrote the book because of her interest in the achievements of poorly recognised women she laboured the effort with too much detail of the work involved in creating the drawings, painting, hand colouring the images etc.… (mere)