The Pelican Bride

Pelican Bride
Beth White
(Revell)
ISBN: 978-0800721978
April 2014/368 pages/$14.99
She's come to the New World to escape a perilous past. But has it followed her to these far shores?

It is 1704 when Frenchwoman Geneviève Gaillain and her sister board the frigate Pélican bound for the distant Louisiana colony. Both have promised to marry one of the rough men toiling in this strange new world in order to escape suffering in the old. Geneviève knows life won't be easy, but at least here she can establish a home and family without fear of persecution for her outlawed religious beliefs.

When she falls in love with Tristan Lanier, an expatriate cartographer-turned-farmer whose checkered past is shrouded in mystery, Geneviève realizes that even in this land of liberty one is not guaranteed peace. Trouble is brewing outside the fort between the French colonists and the native people surrounding them. And an even more sinister enemy may lurk within. Could the secret Geneviève harbors mean the undoing of the colony itself?

Gulf Coast native Beth White brings vividly to life the hot, sultry South in this luscious, layered tale.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo Credit:
© Wendy Wilson Photography

Beth White's day job is teaching music at an inner-city high school in historic Mobile, Alabama. A native Mississippian, her passion is writing historical romance with a southern drawl. Her novels have won the American Christian Fiction Writers' Carol Award, the RT Book Club Reviewers' Choice Award, and the Inspirational Reader's Choice Award. Learn more at www.bethwhite.net.

MY THOUGHTS

I enjoyed Beth White's earlier novels several years ago and am delighted that she has released another one. The Pelican Bride is set in the days when what is now Alabama was just a territory. Vivid imagery and credible characters whisk the reader three centuries back in time, giving a new appreciation for the hardships faced by the early settlers. Conflict abounds both within and without the walls of the fort, and it isn't clear which is more dangerous. Whoever believes that women are the weaker sex has never read of the women who arrived on ships such as the Pelican to marry strangers and populate this new land. Don't miss this tragic and tender tale!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Baker/Revell Publishers as part of a blog tour. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”