y debut novel, The Gospel of Isabelle Dequenne, is the story of a seventeen-year-old French girl trying to survive WWII. Burdened with a violent secret and having lost everything she loved to the war, Isabelle Dequenne flees to Canada with Aimée, an orphaned newborn, vowing to never again feel the pain of loss. Isabelle never reveals her origins to Aimée and remains isolated and emotionally detached from her adopted daughter. Fifty years later, with their relationship teetering on collapse, Aimée discovers a way to unlock her mysterious past, but she must persuade Isabelle to return to the one place she swore she would never go back to: the village in France where her life was destroyed. Now back at ground zero, Isabelle relives the horrors of the war and she must choose if she will continue to live in loneliness and isolation, or if she will make her peace at last.
I am currently – and it seems eternally – writing and editing the second draft.