The Utmost Delicacy - Part I Violette

It is 1763, three years since the gauche youth, George III, succeeded to the English throne. Treaties with Louis XV, King of France, and other European potentates have ended seven years of war but the continent battles on to perfect the recipe for China's most precious secret, the white gold of true porcelain. Tricked into fleeing his lowly vocation as apprentice thrower at the Svres porcelain factory and the woman he adores, tienne Dubois finds himself embarking on a new life, procuring English imitation porcelain for the Channel Islands. Blind determination and three women, trapped within their destinies - a spirited peasant girl, a brilliant scientist and the most fashionable duchess in England - raise him to the pinnacle of his ambition, selling exquisite porcelain from his own factory. But true porcelain is as brittle as it is sublime...