Behind The Columns

General Fiction, Romance

By Arlette Gaffrey

Publisher : Outskirts Press, Inc

ABOUT Arlette Gaffrey

Arlette Gaffrey
For those of you who would like to know something about me, I was born and raised in New Orleans. I am a French and Spanish Creolé. My family settled in New Orleans in 1834. When I was eighteen, I began modeling and I loved it. It was shortly after World War II and it was time for beau More...

Description

Historical romance offers fascinating introduction to 1846 New Orleans, its passionate Créole people, and a beguiling Créole belle named Désirée Bordeaux. Arlette Gaffrey has released her latest novel, a historical romance titled Behind the Columns. A native of New Orleans, Gaffrey returns to her roots to tell the story of a young Créole girl who is in love with one man but through circumstances beyond her control is forced to marry another.

The book’s heroine,
Désirée Bordeaux, is a beautiful Créole belle living with her aging grandfather, a heavy drinker and gambler who has accrued massive debts. When he dies suddenly, Désirée learns that her beloved plantation Chêne Vue must be auctioned off.

To her great dismay
, Désirée finds herself being wooed by Philippe Jaunet, a cruel man who lusts after her family’s plantation, as well as by the handsome and wealthy New Yorker Lance Van Buren. Désirée’s heart belongs to another – the man who broke his promise, broke her heart, and married someone else – but she finds herself forced to wed in spite of her feelings. Her tenuous marriage to Lance is complicated when Désirée visits his home in New York to meet her in-laws and devious forces do all they can to destroy the couples’ growing but fragile union.

When the historic patroon system is banished along the Hudson Valley and a bloody uprising threatens, it takes all of Lance’s considerable powers to work with the tenant farmers who have been with his family for generations.

As important as this work is, it means he is prevented from following his heartbroken bride, who flees back to her ancestral home after a revelation that threatens to destroy her happiness forever. Ultimately, Lance and Désirée find themselves pulled in different directions.

As Désirée reels from the impact of her brief union with Lance, she is also forced to confront once again the evil that Philippe Jaunet represents. With her life complicated by circumstances, misunderstandings, lies, and betrayal, as well as the workings of her own turbulent heart, Désirée fears she may never know true love.

Power, passion, and deception
rule as readers once again enjoy a seductive immersion into Créole culture and the famed Crescent City in Arlette Gaffrey’s latest novel, Behind the Columns.