Bride of New France

Transporting readers fromcosmopolitan seventeenth-century Paris to the Canadian frontier, this vibrantdebut tells of the struggle to survive in a brutal time and place. LaureBeausejour has been taken from her destitute family and raised in an infamous orphanageto be trained as a lace maker. Striking and willful, she dreams of becoming aseamstress and catching the eye of a nobleman. But after complaining about herliving conditions, she is sent to Canada as a fille du roi, expected to marry a French farmer there. Laure isshocked by the primitive state of the colony and the mingling of the settlerswith the native tribes. When her ill-matched husband leaves her alone in theirderelict hut for the winter, she must rely on her wits and her clandestine relationshipwith an Iroquois man for survival.