![]() Julianne is drawn into a web of secrets and lies involving her convict husband Simon, her missing brother Benjamin, and the upright French officer Mark-Paul Girard who acts as her guardian angel while hiding his own secrets. The history is seamlessly woven into the tale, and the tale is fascinating. This novel is a fascinating glimpse into a little known chapter of history. Supplies are scare, skills are lacking in the convict population, disease and vice are rampant, and the soldiers and colonists are caught in political tensions between England and France and the Indian tribes each bribes to be their allies. The conditions in and around New Orleans are harsh. They realize they are basically breeding stock to populate the colony for France. Convicts are forced to wed each other before shipping out. Once started on this path, she quickly faces hardship. ![]() Since her only relative, her younger brother Benjamin, went to Louisiana as a soldier and vanished, she eagerly accepts this fate. Her only option to escape the horrendous French prison system is to go out as a colonist to Louisiana. She is branded with a fleur-de-lys, “the mark of the king”, so that all will know she is a murderess. ![]() ![]() Julianne Chevalier, the heroine, is a French midwife who is unjustly convicted of murder after a noblewoman she is attending dies in childbirth. The Mark of the King by Jocelyn Green is an historical saga set primarily in French Colonial Louisiana. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |