East of Orleans is a story that took me years to write. A lot of things came to me some good and some almost eerie during my years of writing this novel.The first two drafts I wrote entirely by hand;almost one thousand pages...The characters lived inside me and I learned each one and know them all well...I have such a love for this story and I hope you will too.
I am currently hard at work on my next novel, and one thing is a certainty: It will evolve around layered characters, mystery, romance, life and death centered on the only stage I know as home, the deep South. I hope to release my next novel, Meli,Trails of Tears, A Civil War Love Story, in November or December 2012. Until then....
"All Things Lead Me To You."
-- Renee'
East of Orleans
Their worlds were different, but their desires were the same . . .
Isabella McCoy, from the banks of the Chattahoochee River in Georgia, was as naïve as she was beautiful.
Jacqueline Rousseau, the exotic New Orleans prostitute, was known for cruelly breaking men’s hearts while she emptied their pockets.
Both with dark secrets of their own, running away from their pasts, to an uncertain future.
Fate brought them together, and into the arms of the notorious cotton broker Jules McGinnis, who became both a husband and lover to them.
Jealousy. Passion. Love.
Murder.
Now both women must overcome the truth of their tormented pasts and their unknown futures, as they face one of the most scandalous murder trials Georgia had ever seen.
East of Orleans is a 358 page novel.
"In the deep South of the 1880's, two young women, Isabella McCoy, a beautiful white girl from rural Georgia and Jacqueline Rousseau, a sultry, black French Creole who works in the finest bordello in New Orleans, are on separate paths in their unhappy lives. This epic novel takes us into their world, which is filled with love, lust, betrayal, rape, murder, wealth, greed, power and corruption. There are surprises at every turn as each woman copes with the cards life has dealt her. And then their paths converge when they burn the cotton fields of the man one is married to and both hate. In one of the most dramatic scenes ever written, the two women save the black sharecroppers' wives and their children from horrible slave conditions and their terrible fate. Isabella and Jacqueline's friendship is literally forged in fire and each must now fulfill her destiny.
Renee Irvin takes the reader on an unforgettable journey back to another time and place and into the hearts and minds of two remarkable women. She has seamlessly woven the numerous characters and story elements to create a beautifully detailed tapestry of hope borne of heartbreak and of strength borne of family love. An absolutely wonderful read from cover to cover." --Ann K Fisher
Renee's next novel will be released December 2012.
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About Renee'
Like Renee's life itself--deep, rich, adventuresome, and sometimes dark, her debut novel "East of Orleans" is a "real" southern story, the kind that Renee' feels is best told by one of their own, a bona fide Southerner.
Renee' holds a degree in Legal Studies, and studied English & Communications at Oglethorpe University. She also studied at the "Harriett Austin Creative Writing Conference," offered by the University of Georgia, and taught under the skilled eye of Dr. Charles Connor.
