Bluebird, or The Invention of Happiness is a radiant and artful novel based on the life of Lucy Dillon, an 18th-century French aristocrat. Her intelligence, beauty, and lack of pretension made Lucy a favorite of luminaries like Talleyrand and Germaine de Stael - and equipped her to survive the Terror that swept France in the wake of the Revolution. Possessed of considerable wit and practicality, Lucy manages to keep her beloved husband and small children safe while all her former circle, including King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, are guillotined. family settle in the Hudson Valley near Albany. Exhilarated by the personal and political freedom she finds in America, Lucy views her time there not as exile, but rather as opportunity - and the former palace darling proudly turns dairymaid, establishing a successful farm and embracing all the challenges and adventures the New World presents her.