juliette ascending

"How I love the night! My family's house, like others in the French sector of New Orleans, is tall and narrow, walled and gated, its beauty hidden from any passersby. And I am hidden, too. Only at night may I slip out, unchaperoned, onto the balcony overlooking the street and glimpse the world beyond the iron railing." 

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet married on Shrove Tuesday—which, by another name, is Mardi Gras. An 1874 Mardi Gras ball in post-Civil War New Orleans is the backdrop for a forbidden courtship between fifteen-year-old Juliette Carondel and Union Private Roland Montgomery. Weaving together romance and suspense with details of ballroom, wedding, and funeral customs, Juliette narrates her own story of discovering the strength within herself to overcome heartbreak, defy family prejudices and find a way to live for love, not die for it.

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