NEW ORLEANS LEGACY

by Alexandra Ripley ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 2, 1986

After a brief stint in Renaissance Florence, The Time Returns (1985), Ripley has come home to the Dixie of earlier efforts. And, as usual, her rendering of the historical scene is lush and entertaining, her New Orleans circa 1850 replete with everything you ever wanted to know about the Deep South, including a recipe for beans and rice, voodoo, yellow-fever epidemics, the Underground Railroad, dotty belles and cafÉ au lait-colored octoroons--all, of course, set to the soupy strains of melodrama. Sixteen-year-old Mary MacAlistair receives word, on the day of her graduation from convent school, that her papa has died, that her chilly mother isn't her mother at all but her stepmother, and that she's been cast adrift. But Mary has more pluck than the average girl, so she sets off to search out her true mother's family in old New Orleans. Innocent that she is, she barely escapes the tentacles of Rose Jackson, New Orleans' most exclusive madame, though handsome Creole planter Valmont Saint-Brevin happens to see her in the vicinity of Rose's and therefore assumes she's a lady of the night. As it turns out, Mary is actually the daughter of one of the city's first families, the Sazeracs, but crazy old Aunt Celeste has kept her out of the way be. cause she's always been jealous of her dead sister, Mary's mother. So, before finally being acknowledged by the Sazeracs, Mary must make a go of it on her own; she starts a successful dress shop, but then gets raped by Valmont, who still thinks she's a whore. When he learns the truth, though, Mary's able to forgive. . .and live happily ever after with him. Compelling at the start, less so at the end; still, readers of the genre will appreciate this one. A gooey little treat from the patisserie.

Pub Date: Feb. 2, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1986

Categories: FICTION