Huguenot Ancestors

Kenn Joubert has achieved what many family historians only dream about - transforming the family history into a fictional narrative. His Huguenot Trilogy is the result: three volumes of action, adventure and romance which will appeal whether you have Huguenot ancestry or not.


1. ESCAPE TO FREEDOM

It is 1687 and the Sun King of France has grown frustrated by the challenges of the Protestant heretics and sends his dragoons into Southern France. 

Pierre Jaubert, a shy young farmer, living in the village of La Motte d'Aigues in the sun-kissed hills of Provence, is catapulted into the life of an outlaw when he impulsively attacks a vicious Dragoon Captain. The officer swears revenge as the festering scar on the cheek fails to heal. The very last thing Pierre wanted to be was a hero. He is forced to join a tidal wave of Huguenots trying to escape France. Huguenots caught fleeing are faced with imprisonment or death. 

Attend a colourful village wedding of Isabeau Richarde - a woman Pierre has secretly admired - as she marries into the Mallan family. Follow Pierre's many disastrous attempts to reach safety and the parallel escape attempts by Isabeau and her Mallan family. 

2. FOLLOW THE WIND

This exciting historic novel will bring the reader directly into the trauma faced by the French Protestants in the 1600s. The first book in the Huguenot Trilogy was Escape to Freedom. The second book, Follow the Wind, introduces new and old characters that readers have enjoyed.  It is 1687. Although a group of Huguenots refugees from Provence have skillfully escaped from France into free Switzerland, they are pursued by an avenging troop of disguised French Dragoons determined to assassinate key members of the party.

Feeling helpless, a new character, young Susanne Reyne, watched her family murdered during a safe border escape into Switzerland. Now, penniless in Geneva, she is desperate until she recognizes a neighbour from Provence, Pierre Jaubert, in Geneva streets and attempts to seek his aid. Join the group as, swept by the tidal wave of refugees, they are attacked continuously while searching through Europe - through the cantons of Switzerland, down the Rhine River and eventually ending up into the Netherlands – still searching for a future.

Here in Holland, the group is both terrified and excited, as fate throws a daring challenge - an offer of farm land and freedom in Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. Never having been to sea before, the group journey on a small Dutch galleon, the China, to the bottom of the world. 

3. THE EARLY YEARS

After a shockingly dangerous voyage on the galleon China, the passengers, which included a group of young would-be brides - orphan girls from Rotterdam - arrive in Cape Town. Rejoin the young Huguenot couple, Pierre Joubert and his wife, Isabeau. Each settler, is expected to develop a farm on free land. A major task when you have to deal with lions, elephants and other wild creatures - warthogs, baboons and pythons. 

Each family must build their own house, clear the frightening land and raise crops, as they promised they would. Follow their struggles not only to survive but to tackle and defeat the many challenges they face.

The Huguenot Trilogy is available online at: 

www.trafford.com/05-2075