In the midst of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, two twin girls are separated. Maude is frail, manipulative, and determined to thwart her ambitious family's plans to marry her to a Protestant French nobleman. Miranda, on the other hand, is lost to her family and is taken in by a traveling troupe of players. With her monkey, Chip, she performs as an acrobat for years until she is discovered by Gareth, Lord Harcourt - her sister's guardian.

Gareth desperately needs someone to impersonate Maude. Henry of Navarre - soon to be King of France - has expressed interest in his ward, which would be a stellar match that would bring Gareth's family political power in England and France. But Henry will only wed someone with spirit, and Maude has shown none for years. So Gareth teaches Miranda to be a lady and slowly finds himself falling more and more in love with the flirtatious vagabond.

The Good: Miranda was really quite lovely. She had a lot of spirit, a big heart, and a way of bringing out the best in those around her. I liked the way Maude's fretfulness and contrariness was explained as boredom, and I liked the way her relationship with Henry shaped up. I loved the scenes with Queen Elizabeth and those with Miranda's 'family'. And I adored that Henry called her 'firefly' - good original endearments always make me happy.

The Bad: The whole twins separated at birth with a psychic connection needs to be really well done for it to work. It didn't. The beginning of the book was just a flurry of names with absolutely no explanation as to who was who and what they had to do with anyone - always a pain. I didn't like Gareth's relationship with his sister, nor did I like that Gareth's ambition didn't have any real motivation. His relationship with his former life wasn't particularly credible - partially because it wasn't explored in enough detail for it to make sense.
The Epilogue, which perhaps should be the prologue, made no sense and had no connection to the rest of the story really.

Bottom Line: I liked it well enough this time through. I'll probably reread at some point. ( )