After This Our Exile

Book excerpt: After the years of turmoil and tragedy, life at La Bonne Vie Plantation settled into placid contentment (or a semblance of such) ... until Nicolas (Nicky) Fontenot, prodigal son of Angelique and her brother François, returns after years in a Texas prison, and Antoine Babineaux II returns to claim his father’s name. At the heart of the story, and the hearts of Antoine and Nicolas, is beautiful, incorrigible Desirée Fontenot, the image of her mother Angelique. Ghosts of the past rise up and the lurid whispers and innuendos come to life once again. Then Uncle Virgil Leveque, the catalyst of the earlier tragedy, returns home after thirty years in an insane asylum, and unwittingly becomes the agent provocateur that sends the story hurtling toward its conclusion and closure at last. But is there truly closure?