The bestselling author of Schindler's List and The Daughters of Mars
returns with an "insightful and nimble...consistently fresh and
engaging" (The New York Times Book Review) novel about the remarkable
friendship between a quick-witted young woman and one of history's most
intriguing figures, Napoleon Bonaparte, during the final years of his
life in exile on St. Helena.In October 1815, after his defeat at the
Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte was sent to live the remainder of
his life in exile on the remote Southern Atlantic island of St. Helena.
There, on what he called "the cursed rock," with no chance of escape, he
found an unexpected ally: a spirited British teenager named Betsy
Balcombe who lived on the island with her family. While Napoleon waited
for his own accommodations to be made livable, the Balcombe family
played host to the infamous exile, a decision that would have
far-reaching consequences for them all. In Napoleon's Last Island, based
on a true story, acclaimed author Thomas Keneally re-creates Betsy's
powerful and complex friendship with the man dubbed The Great Ogre, her
clashes and alliances with his remaining courtiers, and her uneasy
journey to adulthood as she begins to see the imperfections and
weaknesses of human nature. As he brings a fascinating period vividly to
life, Keneally shines a fresh light on one of history's most enigmatic,
charismatic figures. "The book is a complex and mesmerizing success,"
raves the Christian Science Monitor, hailing it as "a masterpiece in
miniature...unfailingly great reading [and] testimony to the fact that
Keneally is our greatest living practitioner of historical fiction."
