Holy fools - Joanne Harris (First edition)

Set in seventeenth-century France, against a backdrop of witch trials, regicide and religious frenzy, this is the story of Juliette, one-time actress and rope-dancer, who is forced by circumstance to abandon the travelling life and seek refuge among the sisters of the remote abbey of Sainte Marie-de-la-Mer. 

Reinvented as Soeur Auguste, Juliette is able to make a new life for herself and her young daughter, Fleur, under the benevolent tutelage of the kindly Abbess. But times are changing; the murder of the King, Henri IV, becomes the catalyst for massive social and political upheaval in France, which soon reaches even this remote island community. 

Following the death of the old Abbess, a new appointment is made, and Juliette sees her comfortable life begin to unravel. For the new Abbess is Isabelle, the eleven-year-old child of a corrupt and noble family fanatically bent on reform. Worse still, Isabelle has unwittingly brought with her a ghost from the past, Guy LeMerle, a man Juliette has every reason to fear and hate, who has a troubling agenda of his own.

Masquerading as a cleric, LeMerle soon begins to work the situation to his advantage. As, under his malicious influence, secrets are uncovered, passions unleashed and petty rivalries turn to murder, Juliette and LeMerle engage in a deadly game of wits and wills, from which only one of them can come out alive...