Sandra Gulland
I'm the author of the JOSEPHINE B. TRILOGY, the internationally best-selling novels based on the life of Josephine Bonaparte, Napoleon's wife. The Trilogy has been published in 17 countries.
The Trilogy was followed by MISTRESS OF THE SUN and then THE SHADOW QUEEN, a "sister" novel. Both novels are set in the Court of Louis XIV, the Sun King.
THE GAME OF HOPE, a Young Adult novel about Josephine Bonaparte's daughter (and Napoleon's stepdaughter), has been published in Canada and the US.
I am now writing another Young Adult historical novel about a young falconer in Elizabethan England.
An American-Canadian, I was born in Miami, Florida, and lived in Rio de Janeiro, Berkeley and Chicago before immigrating to Canada in 1970 to teach in an Inuit village in northern Labrador.
Settling in Toronto, I worked as a book editor for a decade before moving with my husband and two children to a log house in northeastern Ontario, where, in 1985, I began writing full-time.
Our two children grown, my husband and I now live half the year in Ontario, and half in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
For more information about me, my research and work, go to my website at www.sandragulland.com. I also write a blog, and can be found on the Net in a number of locals:
Website: http://www.sandragulland.com/
Blog: http://sandragulland.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://bit.ly/sgullandFacebook
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Sandra_Gulland
“You are thinking of the past." I put my arms around her. She'd risen from childbed too soon. "We are the past," she said.”
“I lowered myself into an armchair. I was enveloped in a cloud of dust. All that remained of my life was in my lap. I sat for a time thus, as still as the mute objects that surrounded me. How little it all meant, in the end.”
“The Queen has been guillotined, accused of crimes beyond imagining. Last night she appeared to me in a dream, handing me her head.”
“Now I have discovered where it is that she goes. It's the guillotine that draws her, across the river in the Place Louis Quinze- Place de la Revolution now-where daily crowds gather, the vendors selling lemonade, the children playing prisoner's base, the old ladies gossiping as the heads fall.”
“Daggers ever at the ready, I went about the day: children fed, linens mended, bedclothes aired. In little ways one conquers fear.”
“I kissed his cheek. "My King." I swooped into the courtly curtsy he'd taught me as a girl, regally kicking an imaginary train aside as I turned to go. He was laughing silently as I left. For a moment I saw that spark again. I did not say goodbye.”
“For the king, love like an alter fire, eternal”
“We are born, we live and we die - in the midst of the marvelous.”
“He calls me Josephine. He says I'm an angel, a saint, his good lucky star. I know I'm no angel, but in truth I have begun to like this Josephine he sees. She is intelligent; she amuses; she is pleasing. She is grace and charm and heart. Unlike Rose; scared, haunted and needy. Unlike Rose with her sad life.”
“A feeling of disquiet continues to haunt me. As a youth one dreams of love; by the time one wakes, it is too late.”
“I play out the cards. They say: This is Heaven, this is Hell. It is one.”