Burning Marquerite

A haunting weave of lives, secrets, and memo-ries—a powerful work of psychological suspense and emotional intensity.

Waking to the chill of a snow-cloaked morning, carpenter James Jack Wright finds ninety-four-year-old Marguerite Deo lying dead in the woods outside his cabin. As he confronts the mystery of her death—why would Marguerite, his “Tante” since his infancy, walk out into the cold winter night?—an unexpected tale unfolds, moving from the present back to James Jack’s childhood, to New Orleans during the Depression and World War II, and finally to a windswept New England island at the turn of the century. At the heart of the story are a forbidden love, a violent crime kept secret for years, and above all, Marguerite’s relationship with a little boy named James Jack, a bond that deepens after a terrible accident changes both their lives forever.

Burning Marguerite is a debut novel of rare depth and artistry.

Elizabeth Inness-Brown is the author of two collections of short stories, Satin Palms and Here. Raised in the North Country of New York State, she now lives with her husband and young son on South Hero, an island in Lake Champlain, Vermont.