VÉRONIQUE'S JOURNEY

Flinn’s historical novella, the first in a series, explores the choices and wishes of a young, free Black woman in 18th-century France.

In Burgundy, France, in the year 1788, Véronique Clair is 23 years old and a worry to her parents. Desperate to see her married and her future secured, Véronique’s father travels to nearby areas of the country to find a suitable match for his daughter. Though it is the wish of her parents—her father, born into enslavement in Saint Dominque, now free, and her free Black mother, born in France—that she find a husband, Véronique is not so sure. She works as a servant, or domestique, but she wonders if she might find opportunities through work instead, especially given her talent for making clothes; she would prefer to marry for love rather than for convenience (“I thought about what I’d just seen in church and what I’d been seeing over the years. All my childhood girlfriends were married but, as the years rolled by, they weren’t setting a good example for why I should be”). The author highlights the limited options available to the less-wealthy women of 18th-century French society, particularly Black women working as servants, with Véronique’s first-person narration soberly relating to the reader that all “women servants were prey but black women even more so.” This is an impressively researched novella, though it also feels very abbreviated and the prose can be a little terse in its description of events. Despite this, Flinn manages to situate her hero effectively throughout the swift progression of the plot, which sees Véronique, threatened with ruin due to a lustful guest of her employer, enter the household of the rich noblewoman Martin, who seems to be the key to Véronique figuring out her future. The brief text leaves the reader wishing for more and anticipating an exciting and highly original series.

A unique journey into 18th-century French history with a hero that readers cannot help but root for.