Rebel

One woman’s fight for survival…

Having taken care of the homestead since her father’s death, the brilliant and beautiful Viviane de Chercy rebels against the man who is about to take away her home, her fortune and her freedom.

The man, Jules, the Comte de Mirandol, has returned from the war in America to the very place where he first knew love, and lost it, years before.

Desperate to escape her fate and the confines of Jules, Viviane stows away on a ship bound for the New World. Once there she falls in love: first with the city of her dreams, Philadelphia; and then, when Jules joins the buckskin-clad Virginian Riflemen at the Battle of Brandywine, another kind of revolution takes place in her heart.

Their story plays out against the backdrop of real events in France and America in 1776: France's secret arms deals with Congress, diplomatic conflicts at Versailles, the campaigns of the continental armies and some of the key battles of the early American Revolution.

The cast of characters includes many great figures of the age: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Benedict Arnold, Daniel Morgan, Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais and the extraordinary Marquis de La Fayette, who was only 19 when he sailed to America against the command of his King and influenced the fate of his own and his adopted country.

La Fayette's youthful notions about liberty ended up being as crucial to United States history as those of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

Jules, torn between his duty in France and loyalty to his American friends, rejoins the Virginian Riflemen and throws himself back into war, but there is no escape from the truth that he is in love with a woman he cannot have.

The story reaches its dramatic denouement early in 1778 on the day France signs her epoch-making alliance with the United States of America.

Interweaving the birth of a new nation with the destiny of two outsiders from another world, Rebel is both a passionate love story and a compelling portrait of late 18th-century France and frontier America.

Praise for Cheryl Sawyer

‘Her ability to write a good story brings to life a very interesting period of history’ – A Darn Good Read

‘This is historical fiction writing at its very best. Astonishingly vivid.’ – Peter Jones

New Zealander Cheryl Sawyer has two master's degrees, with honors in French and English literature, and her career has included teaching, publishing, and writing. She has traveled to all the countries where her novels are set, and currently lives in Sydney, Australia.