And in saving the poor people of the city, Alvin will be put to the greatest test of his life a test that will draw on all his power. Alvin doesn’t know exactly why he’s there, but when he and his brother in law, Arthur Stuart, find lodgings with a family of abolitionists who know Peggy, he suspects he’ll find out soon.īut Nueva Barcelona is about to experience a plague, and Alvin’s efforts to protect his friends by keeping them healthy will create more danger than he could ever have suspected. Now she has sent him down the Mizzippy to the city of New Orleans, or Nueva Barcelona as they call it under Spanish occupation.

And he can teach his knack to others, to the measure of their own talent.Īlvin has been trying to avert the terrible war that his wife, Peggy, a torch of extraordinary power, has seen down the life lines of every American.

He can heal hearts as well as bones, he build a house, he can calm the waters or blow up a storm. He’s a Maker he has the knack of understanding how things are put together, how to create them, repair them, keep them whole, or tear them down. In this world where ‘knacks’ abound, Alvin, the seventh son of a seventh son, is a very special man indeed. Dowsers find water, the second sight warns of dangers to come, and a torch can read a person’s future or their heart. Charms and beseechings, hexes and potions, all have a place in the lives of the people of this world. Using the lore and the folk magic of the men and women who settled North America, Orson Scott Card has created an alternate world where magic works, and where that magic has colored the entire history of the colonies.

Alvin maker seventh son