Sara Donati · 2006 · sea

Sara Donati's 2006 novel. Hannah Bonner and her Scottish cousin Jennet go south after a stolen child, from the French Antilles through Spanish Florida to New Orleans - arriving in the winter of 1814 as Jackson digs in below the city and the British fleet comes up the Gulf. The search and the battle converge in the same few days.

1. 1
   Guadeloupe

   In the French Antilles, Hannah and Jennet pick up the trail of a child taken from them - a search that has already carried them further from the New-York mountains than either had any intention of going.

2. 2
   The Gulf of Mexico

   The chase runs west across the Gulf aboard whatever will carry them, through waters full of privateers, naval patrols and the Baratarian smugglers whose help is about to become extremely valuable to the United States.

3. 3
   Pensacola

   At Pensacola in Spanish Florida, where the British have been landing and arming, the trail turns west again - and the private search becomes tangled with an invasion that everyone can now see coming.

4. 4
   New Orleans

   They reach New Orleans in the last weeks of 1814, a city of Creoles, free people of colour, refugees and militia - and the child, the family and the battle on the Chalmette plain all come to their conclusion together.