num_pages: 294
description: In 1669 Laure Beausejour an orphan imprisoned with prostitutes the insane and other forgotten women in Paris infamous Salpetriere is sent across the Atlantic to New France as a Fille du roi. Laure once dreamed with her best friend Madeleine of using her needlework stills to become a seamstress on the Rue Saint-Honor and to one day marry a gentleman. The King however needs French women in his new colony and he finds a fresh supply in the citys largest orphanage. Laure and Madeleine know little of the place called New France except for stories of ferocious winters and men who eat the hearts of French priests. To be banished to Canada is a punishment worse than death.Bride of New France explores the challenges of coming into womanhood in a brutal time and place. From the moment she arrives in Ville-Marie (Montreal) Laure is expected to marry and produce children with a French soldier who can himself barely survive the harsh conditions of his forest cabin. But Laure finds through her clandestine relationship with Deskaheh an allied Iroquois a sense of the possibilities in this New World. What happens to a woman who attempts to make her own life choices in such authoritative times? Bride of New France is a beautiful debut novel that explores a fascinating chapter in Canadian history.
language: English
title: Bride of New France
publisher: Penguin Canada