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Bordeaux, 1734. To honor a dying man’s request, the Baron Jean Luc de Montigny sets sail with his young son for Quebec City, the gateway to France’s North American colonies. Within hours of his arrival, he is swept into an ethical and emotional maelstrom when he meets a woman born in the French settlement who takes him on a journey through the tormented landscape of her past. And his. Both have suffered irreparable violence and are haunted by the ghosts of remorse and carnage. Amidst accusations of sorcery and infanticide, their passion drives them to defy the barriers that separate them. The course of events is further entangled by a surprise revelation that brings into play the destiny of a vast estate–and its bonded servants. The property’s majordomo, a Senegalese slave, holds the key to the elusive fate of the estate and has his own story to tell. |
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Reviews and Accolades The richness of the novel is matched by the exquisite cover design, a
brilliant mix of image and words that produce a feast of concentrated
pleasure. Winter Passage is a must for the reader seeking great historical
fiction and desiring to break free of the usual parameters that define
this genre. It is a delightful read with characters that linger and ordeals
and choices that haunt your mind long after you put the book down. This
is, to use a clichéd truism, a must-read for anyone seeking to peer into
this little-known but captivating area of North American history. "A brilliant novel.elegantly combines history and highly personal drama
to produce a modern masterpiece of the colonial era." |
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About the Authors PAUL RAYMOND CÔTÉ and CONSTANTINA MITCHELL both hold doctoral degrees from McGill University. They resided in France and Canada before moving to Washington, D.C., where they taught French language, literature, and culture for twenty years. Constantina was a Professor at Gallaudet University and is now Professor Emerita. Among her other accomplishments in Washington, D.C. are two Smithsonian Institution lecture series and a one-year stint at the U.S. Department of State Foreign Service Institute teaching French language and culture. Paul was a Professor at American University where he headed the French-to-English translation certificate program. He is a Chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes académiques—an honor conferred by the French Ministry of Education in recognition of exemplary service to the field of education In addition to independently authoring a significant number of critical studies and book reviews on contemporary writers in France and Québec and serving on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals, they have collaborated on numerous literary projects which include a book entitled Shaping the Novel: Textual Interplay in the Fiction of Malraux, Hébert, and Modiano (Berghahn, 1996). Their articles have appeared in The French Review, Québec Studies, Modern Language Studies, The American Review of Canadian Studies, Francographies, Romance Languages Annual, and L’Esprit Créateur. They co-translated from French into English The Cry of the Gull (Gallaudet University Press, 1998), Deaf Planet (Infinity Publishing, 2002), Letter from Morocco (Michigan State University Press, 2003), and I Nadia, Wife of a Terrorist (University of Nebraska Press, 2006). They now live in Montreal where they work as freelance translators when they aren’t writing fiction. |
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