MARIE ANTOINETTE, SERIAL KILLER

A family trinket leads an American student in Paris to an undercurrent of ancestral deceit and supernatural murder. 

Colette Iselin is about to leave on a nine-day school trip to Paris. She summers in New York City. And her best girlfriends are two very rich queen bees. A perfect life—except that Colette’s parents are divorced, and Colette is too terrified (and shallow) to tell her besties she shops secondhand. On the eve of her departure, she finds a family heirloom necklace. What initially seems just a pretty accessory proves to be a link to a secret society sworn to protect Marie Antoinette—and its heirs are being mysteriously decapitated. Even as Colette explores this grisly, dangerous puzzle, she plays an emotional tug of war, torn between wanting to be herself and wanting to fit in. From sweet and fickle Colette to a consummate mean girl to an unassuming heartthrob, archetypes of chick-lit abound, along with supernatural chills and well-researched accuracy. Though Alender’s heroine might be too shaky to stand on her own feet at times, the descriptions of Parisian streets, bistros, monuments and meals are sturdy. Colette is likable, but her temperament is as bumpy as the ancient, cobbled streets she explores; though sometimes frustrating, it makes her all the more genuine.

All the flavor of a macaron, bound by a ganache of sweet, supernatural grit