This book was a bummer to read, and not just because the characters experienced nothing short of a litany of suffering and woe. Bride of New France was one of the books that I pulled from previous years TBRs and pulled forward, and I think I’m done with that endeavor for the year because I’ve already had three 2-star books this year, and two of them are from this group!
I don’t remember why Bride of New France made my reading list but it likely had to do with my interest and passing understanding of the filles du Roi – the women who were sent to Canada (New France) by order of the King to be married to the male settlers already there to help build a permanent, white populace in the land around the St. Lawrence River.
Yesterday when I had about 80 pages left to go and I knew that I was likely rating this two stars I told my coworker that I was waiting until I got to the Author’s Note to make my final decision because I knew going in that this book grew from Suzanne Desrochers’ Master’s Thesis, and that if the main character Laure’s story was based on a specific woman or an amalgamation of women, I would likely be kinder in my review. Friends, that was not the case.
You see, one of my main problems with the book is that is, in many ways, a running list of tropes loosely strung together as a plot. Sometimes people’s real lives are stranger than fiction, and I’m sure many/most of the terrible things that befell Laure happened to many of the nearly 800 women who were sent, often forcibly, to Canada in the 17th century. But. BUT. For me as your reader to enjoy what you are writing, you must weave it together in a way that makes the sum more than the parts and those parts must have internal logic. If it is easy for Laure to sneak out of the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital one day (even though it comes with punishment upon her return), she should at least contemplate making another escape before being forcibly sent to Canada. If she’s fearing for her life in going to Canada, there must be a significant reason to convince her best friend to join her that is communicated to both the reader and the character. If not, I’m going to be casting a side-eye at your narrative and telling other people to stay away.
Moving on from that, there is virtually no dialogue in this book. Laure routinely refuses to speak to anyone, often as a judgement against that person. She is incredibly insular. Which, if we were let into a rich inner life of the character it would work, we would see where she retreats to escape the conditions of the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, on the ship crossing the Atlantic, and later the conditions outside of Montreal. But we aren’t let in, Laure remains an enigma to the reader. Desrochers writes in her Author’s Note that she wanted to show the inherent strength in a character like Laure, but instead I felt as though I was experiencing everything at a significant remove.
While the character development and pacing are weak, and the approach is overly heavy-handed, there is evidence of good historical research here. It reminds me of The Kitchen House in that way. The author did the legwork, but got hamstringed in the delivery, and all I saw was the mechanics they were attempting. Unlike my review for Always, in December I don’t have other recommendations for what to read instead based on all the missteps, except perhaps just read Homegoing if you haven’t, it is maybe the single best historical fiction I’ve ever read. But don’t read this, I can’t in good conscience recommend it. 1.5 stars rounded up.