Savage Lands
  • Published: 1 July 2010
  • ISBN: 9781409089803
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 384

Savage Lands

Formats & editions
EBook
1 Jul 2010
Paperback
2 May 2011
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Love and betrayal among the first French settlers in the New World. Historial fiction at its absolute best - page-turning, though-provoking, heart-breaking - 'An extraordinary feat of imagination' (Hilary Mantel).

It is 1704 and, in the swamps of Louisiana, France is clinging on to its new colony with less than two hundred men. Into this hostile land comes Elisabeth Savaret, one of twenty-three women sent from Paris to marry men they have never met. With little expectation of happiness, Elisabeth is stunned to find herself falling passionately in love with her husband, infrantryman Jean-Claude Babelon.

But Babelon is a dangerous man to love. Witness to Elisabeth's devotion is another of his acolytes, Auguste, a young boy despatched to act as a go-between with the 'redskins'. When both Elisabeth and Auguste find their love challenged by Babelon's duplicity, the consequences are devastating.

Longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2010.
  • Published: 1 July 2010
  • ISBN: 9781409089803
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 384
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About the author

Clare Clark

Clare Clark's critically acclaimed novels include The Great Stink and Savage Lands, both longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. She is a regular contributor to the Guardian and writes for numerous other publications, both in the UK and the USA. She lives and works in London.

Clare Clark was born in London in 1967. A Senior Scholar at Trinity College Cambridge she graduated with a Double First in History. Her novel, The Great Stink, won the Pendleton May First Novel Award, was shortlisted for the CWA First Novel Award and was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. She is married with two children and lives in London.

portrait photo of Clare Clark

Also by Clare Clark

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Beautiful Lies
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Praise for Savage Lands

As Clare Clark's third novel so lushly illustrates, Louisiana has never been the safest place to live... this eye-opening account of Louisiana's early history conjures up a nicely gothic landscape

Emma Hagestadt, Independent

Clare Clark writes with the eyes of a historian and the soul of a novelist.

Amanda Foreman

Intricately plotted and thick with intrigue, Savage Lands gives us an insight into an overlooked era

Stephanie Bishop, Times Literary Supplement

Richly and densely textured, serious, intelligent, passionately written, and with more than a hint of gothic, the story pushes the reader to examine its central point: who are the savages?

Elizabeth Buchan, Sunday Times

The book is vivid with historical details, the characters intense with drama and feeling... A story to lose yourself in, an intense and satisfying read

Sarah Vine, The Times

This densely textured story forces readers to ask: who are the savages?

Elizabeth Buchan, Sunday Times Culture

Vigorous and intense, energetic and absorbing

Hilary Mantel

Well told, and well paced, with an easy narrative flow. The story offers strong personalities and a complicated, interesting plot...I felt secure in the accuracy of her picture of the time and place... Clare Clark's story and her history ring absolutely and very sadly true

Ursula K Le Guin, Guardian