The author of In the Full Light of the Sun "treats the founding of French Louisiana with her signature dark realism and beautiful handling of character" (Library Journal).

Praised by Hilary Mantel, Amanda Foreman, and the New York Times Book Review for her "verve and intelligence... [and] the originality of her imagination," Clare Clark has become a rising star in historical fiction. Elisabeth is among twenty-three girls who set sail from France for the new colony of Louisiana to be married to strangers. Although she has little hope for happiness in her new life, she finds herself passionately in love with her new husband, Jean-Claude, a charismatic and ruthlessly ambitious soldier. But betrayal is as much a part of the new world as the old, and when Elisabeth finds herself deceived by her husband she also finds herself bound to a poor cabin boy in a way she never anticipated. Clark creates a world that is both incredibly real and incredibly dazzling. And with the same compelling prose and vividly realized characters that won her widespread acclaim for The Great Stink and The Nature of Monsters, she takes us deep into the heart of colonial French Louisiana.

"It is well told and well paced, with an easy narrative flow. The story offers strong personalities and a complicated, interesting plot, stretching over a couple of decades, set in an unfamiliar, truly exotic place and era." -- The Guardian

"Clark's vast store of historical and geographical detail enriches the portraits of her three vibrant characters, whose destinies are inextricably, and memorably, bound." -- Booklist

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• Literature & Fiction

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