BELLE CANADIENNE, an excerpt

        

Fly Away Snow Goose, NWT

                                                                          Amazon

                                                                            Kobo

                                                                     Barnes & Noble

   

    Here is the first page of Belle Canadienne,  a new entry for the Province of Quebec 

in the Canadian Historical Brides series. Coming this year.

    Jeanne reached the top of the stairs. Her day had begun early and she was bone tired. 

Hefting the basket of fish she'd bargained for on the quay, she caught her breath. Although

she ought to hurry on to the fishmarket, bustling just above the quay, she stepped to one side, 

set down her basket of quivering silver, and turned back to face into the wind. 

       There was the cruel, blue-gray sea!

Gulls tumbled through the air above her head. Bolder ones began to land, shrieking and quarreling. Thieving beggars that they were, a few edged close to her basket. She knew it was risky to be abstractedhere; the fish had cost more than expected and she didn't want to lose any of them to these feathered free-loaders. Still, she took a minute to gaze out at the swells, coming in so steadily now, frothy manes tossing.

Five years ago, Pierre Dube, her young husband, had signed onto a ship that had sailed to the great northern fishing grounds that lay ever so far away west, across the dark Atlantic. Her father's words had proved prophetic, and events had unfolded exactly as he had warned Jeanne when she'd chosen to marry a sailor instead of one of those Saintonge cousins, the kind who (literally) kept their feet on the ground, working the profitable--and safe--salt farms.

Pierre's first voyage to the New World was also his last. According to another ship in their small fishing fleet, it had last been seen dodging through a maze of fog and ice bergs. 

Hard to believe that eight years had passed since Jeanne had left her home in The Saintonge and come to live with Pierre's his family in the port of La Rochelle, a thriving city that had once seemed so full of excitement and promise. For a few bright years, she'd been a wife and then a mother, but now she was neither, just another sorrowing widow.

As if losing her husband had not been sufficiently cruel, her fine, active little Michel had died last autumn. He'd followed older boys out onto the rocks and had been swept away by a rogue wave. A few days later, during a lull in the autumn gales, his small broken body had been found just a few miles down the coast, .

Remembering this, she felt the familiar pain in her chest, the terrible ache that would never go away. Jeanne managed to stifle a sob, but she was unable to hold back the hot sting of tears which went coursing down her cheeks. Not wanting anyone to see her, she wiped them away fiercely with the fishy apron.

 "Ha! Get! You dirty thieves!"

Startled by the shout, Jeanne spun around only to discover that the boldest of the gulls had snatched one of her fish. If it hadn't been for her sister-in-law, Sylvine, now rushing forward, waving her arms, the gull would have had his prize. Fortunately for Jeanne, the greedy pest had chosen such a heavy fish that he couldn't easily fly off with it.

Wielding a stick, Sylvine struck the bird as it stumbled along the quay, knocking free his prize. The gull flew up, releasing his displeasure in a splatter of white. The fish tumbled at her feet, all quivering silver.

"Get, you greedy bastards!"

Arms wide, Jeanne joined in, stamping and yelling, scattering the feathered pirates, who arose in a cloud of shrieking protest. 

"Staring out to sea again?" Her sister-in-law's tone, her grim expression, spoke volumes.

There is nothing for you among those waves. Trust me, sister! I know.

~~ Juliet Waldron

(For KFB)