Queen of Swords

A Novel

By: Sara Donati

Narrated by: Kate Reading

It is the late summer of 1814, and Hannah Bonner and her half brother Luke have spent more than a year searching the islands of the Caribbean for Luke’s wife and the man who abducted her. But Jennet’s rescue, so long in coming, is not the resolution they’d hoped for. In the spring she had given birth to Luke’s son, and in the summer Jennet had found herself compelled to surrender the infant to a stranger in the hope of keeping him safe.

To claim the child, Hannah, Luke, and Jennet must journey first to Pensacola. There they learn a great deal about the family that has the baby. The Poiterins are a very rich, very powerful Creole family, totally without scruple. The matriarch of the family has left Pensacola for New Orleans and taken the child she now claims as her great-grandson with her.

New Orleans is a city on the brink of war, a city where prejudice thrives and where Hannah, half Mohawk, must tread softly. Careful plans are made as the Bonners set out to find and reclaim young Nathaniel Bonner. Plans that go terribly awry, isolating them from each other in a dangerous city at the worst of times.

Sure that all is lost, and sick unto death, Hannah finds herself in the care of a family and a friend from her past, Dr. Paul de Guise Savard dit Saint-d’Uzet. It is Dr. Savard and his wife who save Hannah’s life, but Dr. Savard’s half brother who offers her real hope. Jean-Benoit Savard, the great-grandson of French settlers, slaves, and Choctaw and Seminole Indians, is the one man who knows the city well enough to engineer the miracle that will reunite the Bonners and send them home to Lake in the Clouds.

With Ben Savard’s guidance, allies are drawn from every segment of New Orleans’s population and from Andrew Jackson’s army, now pouring into the city in preparation for what will be the last major battle of the War of 1812.

©2006 Sara Donati (P)2006 Books on Tape

Critic reviews

"A smoothly written, engrossing adventure." (Booklist)

Wonderful!

Thank goodness there is another one I can quickly download! Can't wait to hear the rest!

Might be best book.

This may be the best in the series... and would be great without having read the rest of the series.

Wonderful Book!

Great storyline, great characters, wonderful history. I throughly enjoyed this book. It was so hard to put down, very detailed in its descriptions of places, people and how they connect. But you have to concentrate on your listening or reading to keep up. You don’t want to miss a thing!

Informative history with spellbinding story and characters

Great continuity with previous books leading up to this one. Bold and in good “taste” for adult reading.

A Tale of One City

A complex and beautiful story which masterfully weaves together history,
and a rich variety of complicated characters.

awesome

Where does Queen of Swords rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

right up at the very top

What did you like best about this story?

the story is captivating as is the whole series.

What about Kate Reading’s performance did you like?

she brings every character to life. she is the best reader i have listened too

If you could take any character from Queen of Swords out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Elisabeth and Nathanal Bonner

Any additional comments?

i hope that Sara Donati will write more books that are just as spell binding

Perhaps best of the series

This story and narration are exceptional. Series is too. Narration is best I've heard. Bravo!

Wow!

When I figured out the premise of this book I was disappointed because I missed Elizabeth, but how wrong I was! This was a fabulous book and I enjoyed it so much. Leaving NY, this takes us directly into New Orleans and the Battle of New Orleans. It is so interesting to see the differences between the lives of white population and the freed black population. I highly recommend this read.

Outstanding!

Best of the wilderness Series thus far! Beautiful portrait of New Orleans culture. Encore! Encore!

Magnificent

Excellent, magnificent, exciting. I couldn't put it down. There's nothing else to say, I definitely recommend this book.