Find Me in the Stars

Separated by miles, connected by the stars, two healers forge their destinies in a quest for a brighter tomorrow.

Inspired by a true story, this refugee’s tale of sacrifice, separation, and abiding love unfolds in the rugged Cévennes Mountains of Languedoc, France, 1697 in a sweeping adventure during a time of religious divisiveness and Louis XIV’s oppressive rule. This compelling narrative follows the intertwined destinies of two remarkable protagonists, Amelia Auvrey, a mystic holy-woman healer, and Jehan BonDurant, an apothecary from a noble Huguenot family, in a riveting tale of enduring love, faith, and the search for freedom and light in the darkest of times.

Amelia and Jehan are fierce champions of tolerance and compassion in their cherished Cévenole homeland, a region plagued by renewed persecutions of Huguenots. The escalated danger forces their paths to diverge, each embarking on their own dangerous journey toward survival and freedom. To avoid entanglement in a brewing rebellion, Jehan joins a troupe of refugees who flee the country in pursuit of sanctuary—a journey that challenges his faith and perseverance—while the Knights Hospitaller provide protection and refuge for Amelia and her ailing sage-femme grandmother, even as they come under suspicion of practicing witchcraft.

Amelia’s deep spirituality and dedication to healing her people are eclipsed by her longing for Jehan and the anxiety she feels over his well-being as he embarks on the perilous and illegal escape to the Swiss Cantons. He arrives to find things are not as he expected; the Swiss have their own form of intolerance and soon immigrants are no longer welcome. The utopian Eden he seeks remains elusive until he learns of a resettlement project in the New World. But he is unclear if Amelia will commit to joining him, or if she will hold fast to her vow of celibacy and remain in the Cévennes.

During their time apart, Amelia and Jehan rely on a network of booksellers to smuggle secret letters to each other—until the letters mysteriously cease, casting doubt on their future together. Seemingly ill-fated from the start, their love is tested to its limits as they are forced to navigate a world where uncertainty and fear threaten to eclipse their unwavering bond.

This gripping tale is reminiscent of Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth and Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander. The constant interplay of opposites—light and dark, safety and peril, movement and stasis, communication and isolation, the rhythms of daily life and the ravages of persecution—create a dynamic tension that propels the story forward in a linguistic style that has been compared to M.L. Stedman in The Light Between Oceans.

As a stand-alone sequel to the award-winning The Muse of Freedom, a bestseller in Renaissance Fiction, Find Me in the Stars is based on true events in the life of Jean Pierre Bondurant dit Cougoussac—an unforgettable adventure where love and light endure against all odds.