The Mark of the King by Jocelyn Green

Jocelyn Green is an author to follow! Her depth of character and plot spins the reader into a tightly woven web that does not let go until you finish the last delicious page!
Julianne Chevalier’s story begins in Paris, France in 1719—such a different time and place, especially for those caught in untoward circumstances. Jocelyn takes the reader back to the unfairness and severity of eighteenth century law. Those judgments made were much different than those of our court system today.

I immensely liked and cared about the main character’s journey. The oppositional characters earned my distrust and dislike!

As the story begins I was able to sink myself into the time period and consider for the first time the true-life struggles and conflicts that 1719 French women experienced. Mindsets and social expectations conditioned judgmental attitude toward others when they were accused of a crime.

The pacing and content of this historical provided excellent involvement for this reader. My imagination flew boundless as I followed Julianne’s experiences in France and as she acclimated herself to the heat and humidity of New Orleans, Louisiana. One circumstance lead to another, which evolved into a tale that is unforgettable and gripping.

This is a well written story which caught my emotions in a vice grip. The characters from Adelaide to Benjamin Chevalier as well as everyone in-between were noteworthy and interesting. I highly recommend this novel and this author for your reading pleasure! If you take my advice grab your tissues, block out some uninterrupted time—for you will not want to put this novel down! Well done, Jocelyn Green. I look forward with expectation to your future reads!

Questions for Jocelyn:

1. What or who inspired your story?
   It started with a list of names I found online. Genevieve, Catherine, Marie-Louise, Angelique….Aged 20. 17, 16, 24…These were names and ages of real women who were transferred from the Paris prison and orphanage of Salpetriere to go settle New Orleans in the early 1700s. I was hooked! I had to find out more, and found history that was both fascinating and new to me. There are many excellent books set in the British colonies, but the French colony of Louisiana seems to be much lesser known. The years of forced immigration, whereby Paris cleaned out its prisons to populate a floundering wilderness, was just too rife with story potential to ignore. It’s a story of incredible hardship and courage, fear and hope, judgment and redemption. It also offered an opportunity to unlock a slice of American history most of us know little about, which appeals to me a great deal.
   
2. Have you been interested in France and New Orleans, Louisiana for very long?
   I’m interested in France because my brother was a missionary there and married my sister-in-law who grew up outside of Paris. Before I’d heard about the French plan to colonize Louisiana, I was probably about as interested in New Orleans as most people, but the main thing I associated with it for a while was Hurricane Katrina. Now, of course, I think of what it must have been like way back when it was founded. It’s interesting to note that the site for the settlement was contested even then, and it flooded often.
   
3. Laura Frantz wrote that you both created a tie between your heroines from her novel The Lacemaker and your novel A Refuge Assured. I LOVE that you did that. How did this come about?
   We love the connection, too! It came about because I read her author newsletter, and she mentioned the heroine of her upcoming novel was a lacemaker. Just like mine. Both of our stories were pretty far along in the process, too. I emailed Laura immediately and we compared the similarities and differences in our stories. Laura’s story is set in colonial Williamsburg on the eve of the American Revolution. Mine starts in Paris during the French Revolution and quickly moves to Philadelphia in 1794. The connection between the lacemakers was easy to imagine, because lacemaking is typically a tradition passed down from one generation of women to the next. Laura and I had a great time creating a family tree with roots in France, and determining where the branches reached to England before spanning the ocean to America. Our heroines don’t interact with each other in either book, but the eagle-eyed readers will catch the mention of great-grandmothers they shared in each one.
   
4. If you could become skillful with an eighteenth-century craft – what would it be?
   Lacemaking is so amazing but I think I’d go with embroidery. It seems a little more versatile for today’s culture.
   
5. Did you have family who were lacemakers or seamstresses? If so, did you have the pleasure of knowing them first hand or did you hear about them and dream...
   Not that I’m aware of!
   
6. What other fiction stories have you written? What will be next?
   Besides The Mark of the King and A Refuge Assured (two stand-alone novels), I’ve also written a four-book Civil War series called Heroines Behind the Lines Civil War. Those books are Wedded to War, Widow of Gettysburg, Yankee in Atlanta, and Spy of Richmond. I’m also honored to have a novella included in The Message in a Bottle Romance Collection, which has four other novellas authored by Amanda Dykes, Heather Day Gilbert, Maureen Lang, and Joanne Bischof. My next book will release February 2019, and it is titled Between Two Shores. It’s set during the Seven Years War in Montreal, New France.
7. How do want your readers to contact you?
   My Web site is www.jocelyngreen.com and has links on the contact page to all other places online where I hang out.
   

Jocelyn, I can't thank you enough for such a wonderful interview! A special thank you to those who stopped in to find out about Jocelyn Green and her novels! So reader, I don't know about you, but I must say that I have some shopping to do!