Daughter of the Shadows Defying the Crown Series-Book 2

By Kerry Chaput

Published March 30, 2023-Black Rose Writing-314pp

Book Summary

1667 Quebec. Committed to a double life to save her fellow Protestants, Isabelle turns spy against her deceitful Catholic husband. When he devises a ruthless plan to imprison and torture her people, Isabelle learns to fight from a brave young Huron woman. Isabelle seizes the opportunity to undermine her husband’s efforts by escorting him to France. There, she plays the doting wife while she secretly works to subvert the Catholic Church and plot his demise. But Paris is full of poisons, street gangs, and cruel nobility who threaten to destroy all Isabelle has worked to protect. With her found family on the line, Isabelle must challenge the most powerful man in France—King Louis XIV.

Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab

Daughter of the Shadows was first published in the Historical Novels Review Magazine on August 1, 2023 for the Historical Novel Society.

The saga of Isabelle Collette continues in Daughter of the Shadows, second in Kerry Chaput’s IPPY award winning Defying the Crown series. In book #1, Daughter of the King, Isabelle, a French Protestant branded with an H for Huguenot, worships in secret, fears the King and the Catholic law of France. In 1661, she crosses the ocean from La Rochelle, France to the snowy forests of colonial Quebec to become a daughter of the king; promised a dowry, a farm, the opportunity to choose a husband and payment for each baby.

 Chaput’s gripping adventure continues in 1667, as Isabelle who denied her faith to become a Catholic, is living with nightmares and guilt. Well-developed characters Antoinette, Catholic childhood friend and James Beaumont, Isabelle’s husband by marriage contract, have become antagonists as she leads a double life to help Protestants escape prosecution in France.  Chaput supports and improves Isabelle’s spy training and chance of survival with breathtaking descriptions of Naira, a native Huron skilled hunter who teaches lifesaving skills; using senses and mental acuity to overcome enemies. Adding to the suspense is Isabelle’s dangerous return to Paris as a daughter of the shadows. She encounters liars in Louis XIV’s court, Parisian poisons, and the prison walls of the Bastille.

Kerry Chaput creates suspense and anticipation through the schemes and secret agendas involving Isabelle and conniving, greedy husband James. Between graphic descriptions of the horrors in La Rochelle, training with Naira, and fights for survival, there is humorous relief in banter between Isabelle and fellow conspirator, Andre. Within a narrative froth with twists and turns Chaput’s dialogue exudes frustration, anger, tension, and pain.

The Protestant children of France are our past and our future.  Which Huguenots will Isabelle save? Book #3- Defying the Crown coming March 2024.