A stirring and illuminating tale about an ambitious orphan in New France.
The sad story of a Canadian legend lies at the heart of this historical novel.
The book’s subtitle succinctly explains Russell’s concept. Initially, there is nothing special about Étienne Brûlé. After his Huguenot parents are killed in religious infighting, Étienne runs away to live on the streets of Paris. Life changes for Étienne in March 1608. That is when he saves Hélène Boullé from drowning in the Seine. Her father, Nicolas, is an important man, a secretary in King Henry IV’s court, and he takes Étienne into his home. Both Nicolas and Étienne are enamored by maps of the New World. The orphan tells Nicolas that he’d like to go to sea. Nicolas makes that happen, and Étienne is soon sailing on an expedition to the New World headed by Samuel Champlain, the king’s navigator and mapmaker, who becomes the orphan’s mentor. It is there, in what is now Quebec, that Étienne meets two people who will become his longtime allies: the Native Sabiton, his eventual “brother,” and the shaman Ostemoy. Étienne, Champlain’s translator, begins living with the Wendat tribe. Étienne has a child with Ostemoy while Champlain returns to France and marries the much younger Hélène. As Étienne becomes entrenched with the Natives, Champlain’s fortunes wax and wane, with the fallout battering the protagonist and his companions. Russell has done an admirable job fleshing out this diverse cast of historical characters. His prodigious research is apparent in his characterization. This is especially the case with his interpretation of the shadowy Étienne, an outsider in his native country who makes a home for himself in New France. Ostemoy, the author’s own creation, provides the Indigenous perspective to the narrative, as she follows her visions, frequently to her people’s detriment. Russell’s retelling of France’s foray into the New World allows readers to understand the mistakes made by both the invaders and the Natives. He also highlights the mistrust among all the groups involved, which made cooperation impossible. His detailed descriptions of the difficulties faced lend a sense of immediacy to the story. Étienne’s life in New France is shown to be a grueling slog in this comprehensive and informative work.
A stirring and illuminating tale about an ambitious orphan in New France.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-5255-9614-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
