Waif

The discovery of the body of a petty criminal one winter's night in a quiet Yorkshire hamlet, sets in motion a series of events which stretches Inspector Walter Moat's capabilities to the utmost.

"François the waif" by George Sand (translated by Jane Minot Sedgwick). Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

Highland warrior Kieran Mackenzie will stop at nothing to foil Clan MacDonald’s plans to take over the north and that includes stealing MacDonald’s bride. From their first meeting, Trulee Macleod is unexpected―a waif who needs a laird’s protection. On his deathbed, Kieran’s father confesses his sins and gains Kieran’s vow to settle down and beget children. He wants him to find love, happiness, and all the things Kieran had been deprived of all his life. But Kieran knows there’s one more battle to finish before he can do as his father requests—to unite the northern clans and thwart the MacDonald’s plan to overtake their clans and lands. Kieran saves Trulee Macleod from a horrible fate. She’s an enchanting woman who stirs more than desire for the hardened warrior. Although she is blunt toward him, she’s all sweetness to everyone else. Kieran is fascinated by Trulee’s mystical aura and tempting allure. When Kieran finds out who she is, he realizes she is the perfect pawn he needs to gain the peace he seeks. He must make her his to prevent the MacDonalds from using her to enact war. But getting Trulee to agree to marry him comes with danger for them both. Kieran finds out more about his past, events that changed his life. Now he has an opportunity to find brotherhood, and solace. Can the waif secure his heart and help him defeat his past torment?

The Country Waif (Franöoise le Champi) is the second of the three pastoral novels which rank along with George Sand's autobiographical writing as her finest work. Although simple in themselves, these tales have behind them much of the complex experience of her extraordinary life. As Mrs. Zimmerman writes in the introduction, they reflect Sand's "youthful romanticism, her later championing of the working classes, and her desire to record in fiction that was both poetic and factual the lives of the people and the region she knew best." Set in the countryside of the author's native province of Berry, The Country Waif tells the story of Franöois, an orphan boy placed in a rural foster home, and Madeline, the miller's wife who befriends him. Sand's contemporary, Turgenev, wrote that it was "in her best manner, simple, true, affecting." The book has been admired by writers as diverse as Willa Cather (she found it "supremely beautiful") and Andrä Malraux, who considered it a masterpiece. As well as examining the setting, language, and narrative mode of the novel, the introduction looks at Sand's life, in part from the feminist perspective, with attention to the sociopolitical background of the post-Napoleonic era, when Aurore Dudevant felt impelled to rebel against her status as a country wife and to become George Sand.