The Second Footman

Love and obsession across the class divide in 1880's Paris.

A glorious novel full of complex and beguiling characters, The Second Footman is a tale of ambition, unexpected passion and the frailty of human nature.

Nineteen year-old Max is the duchesse de Claireville’s second footman, but he doesn’t intend to endure the indignities of service for long. He has a plan – to find an aristocratic patron to become his unwitting accomplice in an audacious fraud.

Packed with rich period detail, the lavish 19th century French setting reflects the grand but suffocating restrictions of aristocratic society – contrasting the lives of the rich and of those who must serve them.