Welcome to your Starter Library
This is where the stories open up.
Read free chapters, meet the characters, follow their journeys on historical maps, and explore some of the research behind Mirà Kanehl’s fictional worlds.
New here? I recommend beginning with A Half Flower.
Prefer pirates and New Orleans? Start with The Adventuress
Choose your first story
A Half Flower
Recommended starting point
A young surgeon begins seeing things he was never meant to see.
Meet Balzac in 1816 France, before political danger carries him toward a very different world.
The Adventuress
Prefer pirates and New Orleans?
A gentleman smuggler. A woman determined to become a pirate. One customs inspector standing in their way.
Meet Jean Laffite and Cosma in New Orleans, 1813.
The Ocean’s Calling
Work-in-progress preview
Many women of her time want protection or freedom. Cosma wants to be a pirate.
Continue into Cosma’s story with an early preview from the novel currently in progress.
This is an unfinished manuscript and may change before publication.
Explore the world of A Half Flower
Character guides
Explore New Orleans and the Gulf
Historical Maps
These maps enhance your reading experience if you enjoy a bird’s view of locations.
Cosma’s New Orleans
The historical New Orleans map I use while moving Cosma through the city—from streets and landmarks to the spaces that shaped everyday life.
Laffite’s smuggling world
Laffite’s (fictional) smuggling routes to New Orleans and further up to Donaldsonville. He did smuggle from Grand Isle to Donaldsonville.
Character guides
Cosma Drilo
Jean Laffite
Pierre Laffite & Family
Gilbert Walker
Germain
Milton Ray
Tourmaline
La Maîtresse
Marie Laveau
Behind The Ocean’s Calling
Some details begin as a line in the manuscript. Others begin with me spending far too long staring at an old floor plan.
These are photographs, places, documents, and research fragments I’ve collected while building Cosma’s New Orleans.
Why did I need the exact layout of the Cabildo cells? I’m afraid that answer contains spoilers.
What next?
Found a world you want to stay in?
If A Half Flower pulled you in, the complete novel is available now.
If Cosma and Jean are more your company, begin with The Adventuress and follow The Ocean’s Calling as it develops.