$13.95
Paperback, 6″ x 9″
116 pages
ISBN 978-1-63381-437-0
by Judi Valentine
Also the author of The Crystal Chain
Have you ever wondered if you’re descended from royalty? If you’re French-Canadian, you may be. A long time ago, King Louis XIV of France recruited eight hundred young women to sail across the Atlantic Ocean to Quebec. These brave women were called the daughters of the king, les filles du roi.
The Lost Treasure is about two Maine kids who are descended from a king’s daughter, Jeanne Savonnet. At only fifteen, Jeanne sailed alone after leaving behind her best friend, the queen. Queen Maria Theresa was sad to lose Jeanne’s friendship but knew it was important to populate France’s New World with good women. On her last day in France, the queen gave Jeanne a royal gift, a dazzling gold necklace with an eye-popping ruby.
Now, two Maine kids, Josette and Quince, leave behind their summer in Bar Harbor to visit an eccentric great-aunt in Quebec. They learn about their ancestor Jeanne and discover her royal necklace has gone missing. Determined to find it, the kids hunt for clues in the maze of rooms of the manor house and the hostile lighthouse on the river. A crumbling boathouse is forbidden, but the kids sneak out to search inside Jeanne’s old sea chest. Soon they realize a shadowy stranger is stalking them. Who is this stranger? Why is he lurking in the shadows? Follow Josette and Quince, and Hugo the Hero Dog. See if you can crack the mystifying case of The Lost Treasure.
* * *
Judi knows how to move a story forward.
—Maureen Egan, author of The Light from Here
Two Franco-American kids spend the summer at their great-aunt’s house in Quebec, learning about their family history and hunting for a secret heirloom treasure! What’s not to love about this history mystery? It even includes a hero dog!
—Anna Faherty, MA/MS, archivist, Franco-American Collection, University of Southern Maine, University Libraries
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Judi Valentine was fortunate to grow up in Maine, a great place to become a fiction writer. Years ago, while living in Washington, DC, she received her MS and PhD in nutrition and practiced clinical nutrition for twenty years. While there, her science articles were published in DC and Maryland. Once retired, Judi moved home to Maine and enrolled in master’s writing classes in fiction as she revisited an early passion for writing. Since then, she has published four adventure novels for young readers and adult crime stories. The Crystal Chain was released in 2017, followed by a three-book series in which teenage sleuths time-travel to a seventeenth-century French abbey to solve hauntings, kidnappings, and murders.
Her fifth novel, The Lost Treasure, brings to life her unique French-Canadian heritage as a descendent of a daughter of the king, une fille du roi. These daughters were sent to the New World by King Louis XIV over a ten-year period, from 1663 to 1673. Eight hundred courageous young women, ages fifteen to twenty-one, sailed alone to Canada to marry soldiers, fur traders, and farmers living there. The daughters are considered royalty in Quebec. One of them, Judi’s ancestor Jeanne Savonnet, inspired this story after Judi visited her grave in the tiny town of Riviere-Ouelle near the St. Lawrence River. Jeanne passed away in the early 1770s after living a remarkable life in the wilderness, where she learned survival skills from the Indigenous Algonquins.
Judi loves spinning history into fearsome mysteries and invites you to follow the clues to crack this case.