Book description
It is 1704 and, in the swamps of Louisiana, France is clinging on to
its new colony with less than two hundred men. Into this hostile land
comes Elisabeth Savaret, one of twenty-three women sent from Paris to
marry men they have never met. With little expectation of happiness,
Elisabeth is stunned to find herself falling passionately in love with
her husband, infrantryman Jean-Claude Babelon.
But Babelon is a dangerous man to love. Witness to Elisabeth's
devotion is another of his acolytes, Auguste, a young boy despatched
to act as a go-between with the 'redskins'. When both Elisabeth and
Auguste find their love challenged by Babelon's duplicity, the
consequences are devastating.
Clare Clark is the author of two highly acclaimed historical novels:
The Great Stink
(longlisted for the Orange Prize) and
The Nature of Monsters
. Born in 1967, she graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge with a
double first in History, and now lives in London with her husband and
two children.
