In this novel of the 1830s, a young woman challenges boundaries of language, religion, and culture to survive war and find love and a home on the Texas frontier. Sylvie Pensoneau, an orphan, knows she must take risks to create a life beyond the traditional French community in southern Illinois where she has grown up. Avoiding an early marriage, she leaps to join an uncle in an American colony in Texas, then part of Mexico. Spurred by ideals...