Paoletta: An Eye for an Eye, Guest Post by J.R. Powell

Exiled to a Caribbean island, Paoletta Cadoville and her family cling to the hope of one day returning to their Parisian home. But in a single, devastating moment, that dream is shattered. Alone and horrifically scarred, Paoletta embarks on a perilous quest to uncover the truth behind her family’s tragic fate, only to become entangled in a web of political intrigue, secret societies, and dangerous alliances.

In a Paris overshadowed by the guillotine, Paoletta must decide how much of her humanity she’s willing to sacrifice in pursuit of vengeance. Will she achieve justice for her family or lose herself to the darkness that threatens to consume her?

Paoletta – An Eye for an Eye is a gripping historical thriller set during the French Revolution and a stark reminder that in times of upheaval, innocence is the first to fall, and revenge demands a price paid in blood.

Guest Post: Parisian Secret Societies

Secret societies and spy rings were nothing new in the French Revolution or the subsequent Napoleonic era. The revolutionary government built its own internal intelligence apparatus – an omnipresent system that spied on citizens, coaxed them into betraying one another, intercepted letters, and hunted relentlessly for counter-revolutionary activity. Beyond France’s borders, foreign powers cultivated their own webs of informants, eagerly exploiting the desperation of émigrés fleeing the Terror. Exiled clergy and nobles became the dark nerve centres of these operations in cities like London, Turin, Vienna, and Madrid, funnelling secrets to their host courts.

No surprise then that Paoletta encounters two such secret networks in Paris. On the side of the Revolutionaries, we have the Mariannes, a seemingly innocent troupe of young actresses led by Angélique Legrand, a rising star whose charm and talent barely conceal her insatiable hunger for dominance. Onstage, she shines, beloved and adulated, her voice warm enough to sway crowds. Yet, offstage, she is colder, a woman hollowed out by ambition. The Revolutionaries have taken her up, not as a leader but as a tool for propaganda.

The Mariannes themselves are Angélique’s hand-picked acolytes, girls shaped by broken, feral childhoods, drawn to her like moths to a flame that promises warmth but breeds only obedience. Angélique offers them purpose, affection, and the illusion of safety. In return, they surrender everything. Under her direction, they creep through the city’s veins, burning printing houses that dare whisper dissent, stalking fashionable cafés to gather secrets, and, when the Revolution requires it, killing with a terrifying, youthful eagerness.

Opposing them are the Dames de la Madeleine, the remnants of a convent that once bore the same name, which was ransacked and burned in the early years of the Revolution. A handful survived. Frightened and displaced, they hid their grief in silence. Though from the shadows, some chose to work together and feed secrets into the deeper Royalist networks of the Vendée. But the Revolution’s vigilance is ravenous; the Dames de la Madeleine’s numbers have dwindled. Many have slipped into exile, into unmarked graves, or into the jaws of the guillotine.

Whether Marianne or Dame de la Madeleine, these young women may seem naïve and pure at first glance, but beneath their painted façades hides ruthless resolve. They prove, chillingly, that one need not appear threatening to be deadly.

While spy rings smuggled coded letters across borders and shadowed the march of armies, late-eighteenth-century Europe crawled with secretive societies and elite circles whose true intentions were never fully visible. The Freemasons were not a spy ring, yet their hushed gatherings, cryptic rites, and mingling of nobles with bourgeois thinkers made them convenient targets for paranoid imaginations. The Jacobin Club, too, though not a secret society per se, held closed meetings, enforced strict ideological discipline, and wielded considerable influence over political purges.

The Confrérie de Gruyères, however, is an intelligence network, a trader of secrets, a purveyor of scandal, bound by no banner or nation. Born in the quiet town whose name it bears, its agents harvest secrets as others reap grain, collecting them from informants embedded in courts, taverns, barracks, and boudoirs. These secrets are then sold to the highest bidder, regardless of the consequences, the lives ruined, or the wars ignited.

Its informants are well compensated when their offerings are valuable. Many were first lured in by vice: crushing gambling debts, scandalous indiscretions, or sins they cannot afford to be exposed. The Confrérie does not forgive these weaknesses; it feeds on them, tightening its grip until escape becomes impossible.

At the summit sits a small committee of disillusioned, affluent figures whose names are carefully smothered in rumour. They are almost certainly public personalities – men who smile on balconies and toast at banquets – yet behind closed doors they rifle through stolen intelligence, assigning prices to betrayals and deciding which secrets shall boil the continent anew. Their faces remain in shadow, but their influence is unmistakable. Wherever fear spreads, wherever trust curdles, the Confrérie is never far.

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Meet J.R. Powell

Originally from the UK, J.R. Powell lives in Germany, where he works as a translator and editor.

His debut novel was published in 2024, marking the first instalment of a new historical thriller series. Paoletta – an Eye for an Eye follows Paoletta Cadoville, a young woman driven by vengeance after the murder of her family during the French Revolution.

Drawing inspiration from his time living in Paris, Powell immersed himself in the city’s rich and brutal history to craft a story that brings a lesser-explored period to life with the momentum and intensity of a gritty, modern thriller.