Bride Of New France

Laure Beausejour has grown up in a dormitory in Paris surrounded by prostitutes, the insane, and other forgotten women. She dreams with her best friend, Madeleine, of using her needlework skills to become a seamstress and one day marry a nobleman. But in 1669, Laure is sent across the Atlantic to New France with Madeleine as filles du roi. The girls know little of the place they are being sent to, except for stories of ferocious winters and Indians who eat the hearts of French priests. To be banished to Canada is a punishment worse than death. Bride of New France explores the challenges Laure faces coming into womanhood in a brutal time and place. From the moment she arrives in Ville-Marie (Montreal) she is expected to marry and produce children with a brutish French soldier who himself can barely survive the harsh conditions of his forest cabin. But through her clandestine relationship with Deskaheh, an allied Iroquois, Laure finds a sense of the possibilities in this New World. What happens to a woman who attempts to make her own life choices in such authoritative times?

Follows the life of Laure Beasejour, a young French orphan who was transported to the new, but primitive, Canadian colony as part of a program sponsored by King Louis XIV that sent 800 young women abroad to marry settlers. 13,000 first printing.

Follows the life of Laure Beasejour, a young, French orphan who was transported to the new, but primitive, Canadian colony as part of a program sponsored by King Louis XIV that sent 800 young women abroad to marry settlers. 13,000 first printing.

Winner of the Ruth Schwartz Award Jeanne Chatel has always dreamed of adventure. So when the eighteen-year-old orphan is summoned to sail from France to the wilds of North America to become a king's daughter and marry a French settler, she doesn't hesitate. Her new husband is not the dashing military man she has dreamed of, but a trapper with two small children who lives in a small cabin in the woods. With her husband away trapping much of the time, Jeanne faces danger daily, but the bravery and spirit that brought her to this wild place never fail her, and she soon learns to be truly at home in her new land.

Forced to wed a notorious Scotsman, a sheltered French heiress is drawn into a world of intrigue and debauchery as she battles for her husband’s heart against a dangerous rival in this thrilling sequel to Clandara Charles Macdonald has been given an ultimatum: To settle his gambling debts and avoid being sent to the Bastille, he must marry his cousin Anne de Bernard. Anne is beautiful, innocent, and the richest woman in France. Forced into a marriage of convenience, she vows that no matter what her husband takes from her, he will never have her heart. Charles wants only to return to court—and the bed of his notorious mistress, the captivating widowed Baroness Louise de Vitale. When Anne is brought to Versailles at the king’s command, the young, inexperienced bride is no match for Louise’s wiles. The French court soon becomes a stage on which a drama of jealousy and deadly intrigue will play out. As two women fight for the love of one man, a terrible act of malice will destroy one life as it transforms another. With its rich historical canvas, peopled by the real-life figures of King Louis XV, royal mistress Comtesse du Barry, and future queen Marie Antoinette, The French Bride is author Evelyn Anthony at her spellbinding best.

*USA TODAY BESTSELLER* World War II Paris serves as the backdrop for a story of compassion, betrayal, and forgiveness from the national bestselling author of The Wedding Tree... At her assisted living center in Wedding Tree, Louisiana, ninety-three-year-old Amélie O’Connor is in the habit of leaving her door open for friends. One day she receives an unexpected visitor—Kat Thompson, the ex-fiancée of her late husband, Jack. Kat and Jack were high school sweethearts who planned to marry when Jack returned from France after World War II. But in a cruel twist of fate, their plans were irrevocably derailed when a desperate French girl overheard an American officer’s confession in a Parisian church... Now, Kat wants to know the truth behind a story that’s haunted her whole life. She thinks finding out how Amélie stole Jack’s heart will finally bring her peace. As Amélie recalls the dark days of the Nazi occupation of Paris, The French War Bride reveals how history shapes the course of our lives...for better or for worse. READERS GUIDE INSIDE

Something completely different from the bestselling thriller writer: “a full-blooded, unashamed romance . . . Mr. McCarry sweeps you along” (The New York Times). Fanny’s father, Henry Harding, has known Oliver Barebones since the two men were children. Together they survived the Great Plague and the Great Fire, and now they are rich, middle-aged, and unmarried. Everyone’s shocked when Oliver, a lifelong bachelor, falls headfirst for a superstitious young girl named Rose. In two days he’s decided to marry her. For the Hardings and the Barebones, it will be years before they find such happiness again. Ruin comes to them all in the shape of Alfred Montagu, a cold-hearted moneylender who ensnares them in crushing debt and schemes to marry Fanny. After her father dies, Fanny attempts to take refuge in France. It’s not far enough to escape her troubles, so with Oliver and Rose, she departs for a far-off place called Connecticut, dodging Montagu by diving into the teeth of dangers no London girl could ever imagine.

This debut historical novel tells the story of three bold, young women in 1667 who answered Louis XIV’s call to help France settle the New World. They are known as the filles du roi, or “King’s Daughters” —young women who leave prosperous France for an uncertain future across the Atlantic. Their duty is to marry and bring forth a new generation of loyal citizens. Each prospective bride has her reason for leaving—poverty, family rejection, a broken engagement. Despite their different backgrounds, Rose, Nicole, and Elisabeth all believe that marriage to a stranger is their best, perhaps only, chance of happiness. Once in Quebec, Elisabeth quickly accepts baker Gilbert Beaumont, who wants a business partner as well as a wife. Nicole, a farmer’s daughter from Rouen, marries a charming officer who promises comfort and security. Scarred by her traumatic past, Rose decides to take holy vows rather than marry. Yet no matter how carefully she chooses, each will be tested by hardship and heartbreaking loss—and sustained by the strength found in their uncommon friendship, and the precarious freedom offered by their new home. Praise for Promised to the Crown “An engaging, engrossing debut.” —Greer Macallister, USA Today bestselling author of The Magician’s Lie “An absorbing adventure with heart.” —Jennifer Laam, author of The Secret Daughter of the Tsar "An unforgettable saga of strength and sisterhood, one that will stay with you long after the final page.”--Anne Girard, author of Platinum Doll “A heart-wrenching and timeless tale of friendship, love, and hope that skillfully blends history and romance to educate, entertain, and inspire.”--Pam Jenoff, author of Last Summer at Chelsea Beach