Acclaimed author Sheila Kohler's sweeping historical novel, Bluebird, or the Invention of Happiness , is based on the life of Lucy Dillon, an eighteenth-century French aristocrat. Wrenched from the court of Marie Antoinette by the Reign of Terror, the brave and resilient Lucy escapes with her family to the freedom and hardships of a newly independent America where, on a dairy farm in the Hudson Valley, she discovers a new life-and her true self. "A beautiful, authentic, intelligent, and page-turning story...a feast for the senses." -- Amy Tan "Elegant...exquisite." -- Time Out New York ""Sheila Kohler brings her courageous and resourceful heroine vividly to life in a stirring story of revolutionary times." -J. M. Coetzee "Enchanting...Kohler's elegant, clearly written prose conjures a heroine whose enthusiasm for life and learning is infectious, and whose disarming manner is immensely appealing." - Booklist "A radiant, sweeping book...marvelously readable." -Elizabeth Strout " Bluebird is a page-turner saga." -Edmund White "Sheila Kohler hitches her sensory-rich prose to a really good story: that of Lucy Dillon, an aristocrat (based on a real person) in Marie Antoinette's court." - More magazine Sheila Kohler was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She later lived in Paris for fifteen years, where she married, completed her undergraduate degree in Literature at the Sorbonne, and a graduate degree in Psychology at the Institut Catholique. She moved to the U.S. in 1981 and earned an MFA in Writing at Columbia. She currently teaches at Princeton University. Becoming Jane Eyre is her 10th book. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, O Magazine and included in the Best American Short Stories. She has twice won an O’Henry Prize, as well as an Open Fiction Award, a Willa Cather Prize, and a Smart Family Foundation Prize. Her novel Cracks was nominated for an Impac Award, and has been made into a feature film to be distributed by IFC. She has been published in 8 countries.