Tintamarre!“Outstanding historical fiction with a rock-hard substrate of lived lives! Read this and be overwhelmed with STORY! Man can write, and needs to be READ."
Mathilde and Acquila Girouard live a pastoral life with their three children on the shores of the Bay of Fundy. They have a small herd of cows and sheep and a few pigs and supplement the food they grow with the bounty of the bay and the geese in the air. All in all, though life is hard, they live in paradise. Until events thousands of miles away change everything... Suddenly they are in the middle of a battleground. The English and French are in a struggle to control the New World and take its resources. And the little village of Beaubassin was exactly at the crossroads and the cross hairs of the coming war. Mati and 'Quila are pulled in both directions. Their priest is a fierce defender of the French presence and his Church and would break all the rules to get his way; even arrange mass slaughters. At first, the English want the Acadians to stay and continue to grow food and help feed the burgeoning population in New England. But then they get tired of the challenges and look for a final solution. The Girouards are stuck in the middle. The way they live, what they have built, even their lives, are at risk. They need to risk everything to keep anything. Tintamarre! follows the Girouards and their fellow villagers across the River Mesagoueche, through the Siege of Beausejour and the tragedy of the Expulsion. Will they lose each other in the turmoil and survive a terrifying voyage and find a new home in the southern territories? Or will they be one more statistic of the hundreds of Acadians who died in this terrible historic event. More Kudos for Tintamarre!Ernest: I just finished the book and picked up quite a bit of new, to me, information. Unfortunately, the ending was the same as it has been for over two centuries. It was a good book and I recommend it to all.
Norm: I`m almost finished reading it. It`s one of the best books I`ve ever read. I see that I`m getting near the end of the book and I find myself wishing it had double the number of pages. Please keep up the good work. F. Cormier: I am a slow reader, I like to savor every moment and take in all details of that terrible time in Canadian history. For me coming from a surviving family still in Canada I am enjoying every page and learning at the same time about what my family went through.I will be passing this history on to my grandchildren so what they went through will never be forgotten.....Frank. Having ancestors from that era I thoroughly enjoyed this book.It describes what went on during the great "expulsion" of the 1750's in the little place called "Tintamarre"Canada. One gets a real feel for the emotions, love betrayal and heartbreak of the families that sort refuge from the invading armies of the British. A must read for a bit of history that should be remembered........ |
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