Owen Pataki graduated from Cornell University in 2010 with a degree in history. In 2011, he joined the Army and deployed to Afghanistan in 2014, serving with the 10th Mountain Division. Following his military service, he attended the MetFilm School in London. His novels, Where the Light Falls and Searchers in Winter, were published in 2017 and 2021, respectively. Smoke in the Cypress is his third novel. He lives in New York where he works as a screenwriter and filmmaker.

Schedule

Noon to 1:00 pm
State Library, Second Floor, Meeting Room
Fiction from Fact: Louisiana Novels of Subterfuge, Survival, and the Human Spirit
Charles J. Ballay and Susan D. Mustafa, Blood Moon Over Bohemia
Daren Dean, Shelter Me: A Novel
Diane C. McPhail, Follow the Stars Home: A Novel
Owen Pataki, Smoke in the Cypress: A Napoleonic Officer in New Orleans
with moderator Tracy Carr

1:15 pm to 2:00 pm
Cavalier House Books Tent
Book Signing

Smoke in the Cypress: A Napoleonic Officer in New Orleans

A veteran of the Napoleonic Wars must travel from revolution-torn France to Louisiana to rescue a young noblewoman, but he is quickly ensnared in a complex web of political intrigue and violence in this thrilling historical fiction adventure.

As the War of 1812 rages across early 19th-century America, Marcel Moreau, wounded in service with Napoleon's Grand Armée, must journey to New Orleans to find Celeste de Beaumais, a young aristocrat who has fled the aftermath of the French Revolution and has settled herself on a sprawling Louisiana plantation. Standing in Moreau's way are various factions in and around the historic French Quarter—soldiers, slave hunters, marooned slaves, and Jean Lafitte's notorious Baratarian pirates—all of whom have their own interests and enemies. As he ventures deeper into the city and the vast cypress swamps beyond, encountering elements of Creole culture and Louisiana voodoo, Moreau will find that circumstances are much more complex—and dangerous—than he could have imagined.

Meanwhile, a massive English fleet appears on the horizon, causing panic in the city and desperation from the outgunned and outnumbered Louisiana militia. Hoping to benefit from his years of military experience with Napoleon's Grande Armée, these French-speaking Creole farmers and townsfolk, and their American allies, enlist Moreau to help train them for the coming battle of New Orleans. As he does what he can to help this motley resistance movement—led by General Andrew Jackson and bolstered by Jean Lafitte's Baratarians—Moreau soon comes up against another enemy. With the city's eyes on the battlefield, a ruthless plantation master plots his own designs. But those who've escaped his clutches have no plans to return to a life in chains and have formed their own resistance. Moreau must now decide where his experience and instincts must be put to the best use.