HISTORY RETOLD
Blood Bound:
Unlacing Secret Ties
EVENTS
AUTHOR
Marie-Josée
Poisson
Marie-Josée Poisson has been writing since she was a young girl. When she chose communications as a profession, her writing work became more focused on tools like press releases, articles, ads, speeches, web content and promotional material. Before becoming a full-time novelist, Poisson spent three years working in an advertising agency in Dubai and then returned to Quebec to take on senior level communications roles at TV5 Monde and the École supérieure de ballet du Québec.
TRANSLATED BY
Flora-Lee
Bendit
Flora-Lee Bendit has been a language specialist for over 35 years, wearing many hats as translator, revisor, editor, proofreader and business writer. Blood Bound: Unlacing Secret Ties, her first literary endeavour, has allowed this logophile to express her passion for creative translation and verbal art. She continues to work as a freelance French-to-English translator, and volunteers as a literacy tutor.
SYNOPSIS
BLOOD BOUND:
UNLACING SECRET TIES
Past connects to present, mystery combines with romance, and cultures unite in this novel of historical fiction. Accomplished communications professional Lou Ashby travels from Montreal to Paris to find the thread that links her to her French ancestry, unaware of events running parallel to her search. In fact, historian Geoffroy Le Hideux is investigating a mysterious find at the Élysée, the official residence of the president of the French Republic, but also the former home of a woman who had a far-ranging influence on her era. Fate brings Lou and Geoffroy together, and they work with friends and family from both sides of the Atlantic to unlace the secret ties that bind her to one of France’s most famous and infamous historical figures.
CHAPTER 01
FIRST PAGES
At a glance
Emmanuel Obein, master craftsman, didn’t come to the palais de l’Élysée alone. The little red-haired man was accompanied by a colleague who specialized in restoring period floors. The decoration work in the salon Pompadour had provided the ideal opportunity to refresh the wooden parquetry, which had not aged well. Emmanuel’s primary task had been to straighten a pillar. However, when he had inspected the site the week before, he had concluded that he would have to remove the column in question to reinforce the anchorage that secured it to the structure.
The handiwork was shoddy and unworthy of a place like this. “A job half done is as good as none! The people who installed this had no clue what they were doing,” ...
TESTIMONIALS
READER REVIEWS
Eva
Stachniak
Bestselling author
of The School of Mirrors
What if Madame de Pompadour’s son survived, left France for Québec, and has modern day descendants? Marie-Josée Poisson’s novel delights with its deft mixture of historical sleuthing, romantic entanglements, and the hazards of unexpected fame.
Victor
Suthren
Former Director General of the Canadian War Museum, Ottawa
Marie-Josée Poisson is an accomplished writer who depicts the reality of past society so completely that she moves with effortless grace through its personalities, drama and events, and takes you by the hand with her. She captures the heart and spirit of the Baroque era so beautifully that she surrounds the reader in its romance with delightful ease. A master story-teller.
Rebecca
Morris
Author
of Other Maps
Like a French-Canadian Da Vinci Code, Marie-Josée Poisson’s novel spans oceans and generations, combining a glamorous Québec woman’s identity quest with a gripping historical mystery that reaches the highest echelons of French society. Meticulously researched, filled with memorable characters and vivid settings, Unlacing Secret Ties explores the burdens and the blessings of an extraordinary inheritance.