Escape to the Islands with Historical Fiction

The author of Island Queen and Sister, Mother, Warrior is back with another incredible historical fiction novel, this time about the woman crowned queen in the wake of the Haitian Revolution. When her husband, the king, is overthrown, Louise flees to Europe with her daughters in tow. There, she works to establish herself — and her daughters — as the equal of any royal in the continent.

Two women at a Paris asylum, one a patient and one an attendant, are drawn together in the wake of a doctor’s relentless obsession. Josephine is another in a wave of women sent to Salpêtrière asylum in the throes of an epidemic sweeping Paris: hysteria. She becomes a favorite of Doctor Charcot, who shows her off to audiences while under hypnosis. She and the doctor are growing famous, but Laure, instructed to care for Josephine, fears her returning memories could be her undoing. A diagnosis of hysteria is survivable, after all. But a diagnosis of lunacy, even for the doctor’s new favorite, could mean Josephine never sees the outside of Salpêtrière again.