Savage Lands
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- £7.99
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
It is 1704 and, in the swamps of Louisiana, France is clinging on to its new colony with less than two hundred men. Into this hostile land comes Elisabeth Savaret, one of twenty-three women sent from Paris to marry men they have never met. With little expectation of happiness, Elisabeth is stunned to find herself falling passionately in love with her husband, infrantryman Jean-Claude Babelon.
But Babelon is a dangerous man to love. Witness to Elisabeth's devotion is another of his acolytes, Auguste, a young boy despatched to act as a go-between with the 'redskins'. When both Elisabeth and Auguste find their love challenged by Babelon's duplicity, the consequences are devastating.
Longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2010.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Clark (The Great Stink) bases her third novel on the true story of the first French settlers in America and the women who are sent to be their wives. Her dual protagonists the novel begins as two narratives which then converge are the independent Elisabeth Savaret and the curious youth, Auguste. Elisabeth sets herself apart from her gossipy sister brides-to-be, finding solace in her books, but when she meets her rugged husband, she softens into a devoted wife and hopeful mother. Auguste is assigned the task of learning the ways and language of "the savages" since alliance with the native population is key to France's position in the New World. Throughout the novel Elisabeth and Auguste experience all the tropes common to life in the colonies. Clark has many graces as a writer, but while she brims with enthusiasm over her novel's world and delights in describing every facet of it, her penchant for overwriting makes what could be a fast-moving romp into a slog. She is an assiduous researcher, but too eager to show it. Still, Clark's passion for her story overcomes and will please lovers of historical fiction.
