Annette Vallon

July 30, 2007
Inspired by English poet William Wordsworth's continental romance on the eve of the French Revolution, Tipton's debut novel depicts the poet's lover, Annette Vallon (1766–1841), as a Loire Valley Scarlet Pimpernel. History records Wordsworth met Vallon while in France, departed for England when the revolution darkened, but came back to see her and their daughter, Caroline (born in 1792), even after he proposed marriage to an Englishwoman. Tipton begins this fictional account with 16–year-old Annette listening to her father and Thomas Jefferson discuss wine. Six years later, her virtue lost to a dance tutor and her father killed in a grain riot, Annette falls in love with the then unknown English poet. Their idyllic interlude inspires his best work, but soon his political associations place him in danger, forcing him to flee with Annette's help. Pregnant and on her own, Annette recalls early training in hunting and horsemanship to survive the Reign of Terror and beyond, with Caroline in tow. Tipton's descriptions, à la Tracy Chevalier, of how masterpieces are created alternate with the spirited heroine's adventures, making for an uneasy balance, but Annette—and those who help her along the way—are believable in their struggles through the best and the worst of times.