The Captain and the Queen

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Baxter Edwards, the captain of a Carnival organization struggling in changing economic times, selects a celebrity to serve as its monarch, convinced the club will be infused with vitality. However, when he chooses his best friend’s college-age daughter, Claire Boudreaux, to serve as queen, he’s surprised when they develop feelings for one another. Their love for New Orleans unites them; their age difference threatens to keep them apart as the disapproval of family and friends presents obstacles for the cross-generational relationship. Should Baxter leave Claire alone to graduate and begin her career without the pressure of dating a man in a different phase of life?

Threatened by the resurgence of Baxter’s club, Newton Lavoisier, the captain of a rival organization, uses unethical means to cause the Merry Men of Sancus financial harm. He conspires with the krewes’ float-builder to manipulate contracts for his club’s benefit, but discovers alternate avenues to profit from Baxter’s newfound success.

Claire’s father is under pressure to meet his daughter’s financial obligations without help from his unemployed, free-spending wife and his other daughter, a troubled teen who is not at all as disciplined, mature, or frugal as her sister. It isn’t until his health scare that the women in Dan’s family make changes which ultimately improve all of their lives.

 

Frank Borne published his first novel, But for the Grace of God in 2012. Astraea Press (now CleanReads) published Fame and Misfortune in October 2013, and Beau Coup Publishing released The Captain and the Queen in April 2014 and The Captain of Her Heart in October 2014. In 2016, he published Forever Her Captain. He serves as Chief Deputy Clerk of Court with the Jefferson Parish Clerk of Court’s Office in Gretna, Louisiana, where he has been employed since 1994. Borne graduated from Southeastern Louisiana University with a bachelor’s degree in government and a minor in history and has authored numerous non-fiction books and short essays concerning Jefferson Parish history and politics, and served as editor of The West Bank Beacon, a good-news community newspaper, for three and a half years. He lives in Harvey, Louisiana, with his wife Schlise.