This year I decided to participate in The Ripped Bodice’s annual Romance Bingo game and I needed a graphic novel. I had no idea where to start, so I did a search on Smart Bitches, which promptly brought up this book by Jen Wang, which I then requested from my local library.
I thought the cover looked familiar, and according to Goodreads, I added it to my to-read shelf three years ago. Go figure.
This book is delightful. It’s about Frances, a seamstress working at a tailor shop in Paris. A date is never given and the clothes are kind of all over the place, but my best guess would be 1870s-ish … give or take a decade.
The countess is hosting a ball in honor of her brother, the king of Belgium, as well as his wife and their only child, Sebastian. The girl who’s going to be wearing the dress hates the whole idea of going to the ball and tells Frances to make her “look like the devil’s wench”. So Frances proceeds to make her a gorgeous dress you’d probably find on the red carpet today, but no one would have ever worn in the 19th century. The girl loves it, but of course the mother hates it and everyone at the ball is very shocked. I’m not sure how the girl managed to get to the ball without her mother first seeing the dress and forbidding her from ever wearing it, but I’m willing to let that little detail go for the sake of A) the fabulous dress and it’s fabulous reveal, and B) the plot.
Frances is in the process of getting fired from her job for making the tailor’s shop the source of all the scandal when a mysterious man shows up and offers Frances a job on behalf of his client, who would pay her more money than she’s ever made in her life. He won’t say who his client is, but when the tailor finds out Frances is in demand, he offers her more money to stay than the mysterious man is offering her, but Frances knows when to GTFO.
She packs up her things and heads out with the mysterious man, who of course takes her to the palace, because of course his client is none other than Prince Sebastian.
Turns out Sebastian likes dressing up as a woman, but of course he can’t tell anyone, and Frances is sworn to secrecy. Frances, Sebastian, and the mysterious man who took Frances to the palace (who’s name is Emile) are the only three people with the key to Sebastian’s dressing room. If this were a modern romance, he would have had Frances sign an NDA.
Frances has no problem with the assignment and right away starts designing dresses for him. He already has a wig, jewelry, and makeup (did no one notice that his ears were pierced? Did he use clip-ons? Were those a thing back then?) so once Frances makes him a dress, he’s ready to go.
Not only do they go out in public, he enters a beauty competition and wins, giving his name as Lady Crystallia, a pseudonym he ends up adopting and using any time he goes out dressed as a woman.
Of course the two of them become close during their time together, if only because Frances is only one of two people with whom Sebastian can fully be himself, but Frances has ambitions of her own and when those dreams conflict with keeping Sebastian’s secret, she has to decide if enough is enough.
It ends pretty much exactly how you would expect it to. It’s not believable for the time period, but it is satisfying and adorable and I loved it.