Other Sellers on Amazon
+ $4.69 shipping
97% positive over last 12 months
FREE Shipping
100% positive

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.


Cajun Waltz: A Novel Hardcover – June 14, 2016
- Kindle
$7.99 Read with Our Free App - Hardcover
$8.20
Enhance your purchase
Love doesn't much figure between Richie Bainard and Esther Block. They build a business together while dreaming opposite dreams of fulfillment. But like a gumbo simmering with peppers and spice, desires finally come to a boil.
Three generations of the volatile clan grapple with the region's economic struggles and racial tensions. The Bainard children, twins Bonnie and R.J. and their half-brother, Seth, pursue separate cravings for money, sex, and religion. The chase in each case runs off the rails thanks to an ex-marine with a soft heart and a brutish devotion, a dazzling young stepmother of mixed race and mixed motives, and a high school tart who proves tougher and truer than all of them. Ultimately it takes the mass devastation of Hurricane Audrey in 1957 to cleanse the reckless passions. The aftermath is painful but pure, like an old blues song that puts tears in your eyes while you dance.
- Print length272 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherThomas Dunne Books
- Publication dateJune 14, 2016
- Dimensions5.76 x 0.97 x 8.51 inches
- ISBN-101250088992
- ISBN-13978-1250088994
"The Light Through the Leaves" by Glendy Vanderah for $8.79
A transcendent novel of love, loss, and self-discovery by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Where the Forest Meets the Stars. | Learn more
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Patton's novel is raw and atmospheric...mesmerizing [in a] way that readers won't be able to stop turning the pages."- Booklist
"Wondrous, fresh and oftentimes hilarious, Robert Patton's novel, Cajun Waltz superbly animates the Deep South and its many inherent contradictions. A compelling and vividly written page turner about lives that are alternately stunted by tragedy then brightened by hope. A magnificent romp of a book. I could not put it down." - Deborah Johnson, author of The Secret of Magic, winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Best Legal Fiction
"Robert Patton has written a fabulous novel of passion , race, and violent skullduggery set down in Cajun Country. Distinguish yourself by buying it now." - Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump and the Pulitzer Prize nominated Conversations with the Enemy.
"If pleasure is your purpose in reading, you will be delighted with Robert Patton's Cajun Waltz, a novel of unforgettable characters caught in a dysfunctional world of family and place, a stay-with-it story that makes reading a celebration of gladness. And there is this plus: Patton is a remarkably gifted writer, one of the ablest I've read in years." - Terry Kay, bestselling author of To Dance with the White Dog
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Thomas Dunne Books; First Edition (June 14, 2016)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1250088992
- ISBN-13 : 978-1250088994
- Item Weight : 11.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.76 x 0.97 x 8.51 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,360,936 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,538 in Southern Fiction
- #20,646 in Family Saga Fiction
- #98,692 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Robert H. Patton's most recent novel, Cajun Waltz, received the 2017 Connecticut Book of the Year Award for fiction from Connecticut Humanities. A family saga set in southwest Louisiana in the first half of the 20th Century, the novel is available from Thomas Dunne Books (St. Martin's Press).
His previous book, Hell Before Breakfast, a non-fiction history of American newsmen-adventurers in 19th Century Europe and Central Asia, was published by Pantheon in 2014 and is available in paperback from Vintage.
Patton's current project is a series of historical novels centered around the world of colonial privateering chronicled in his acclaimed history, Patriot Pirates. The series features naval warfare, international intrigue, and the colorful money-madness of privateering during the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, and the War of 1812. Look for Book One of Jackals & Foxes from Thomas Dunne next year.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon
Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2016
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Unfortunately, with a small taste of power and control, we find that Richie Bainard is not exactly a very good person. He is a violent and unfaithful drunk, terrorizing his family, friends, and mistress.
Like any good Greek tragedy, the sins of the father carry forward to the next generation. Here we have the twins: Bonnie, cold and pathologically calculating, and R.J., shiftless and casually violent. And then there is Seth, Bonnie and R.J.’s half brother, partially blinded and crippled in an accident as a child, trying to feel his way free of his poisonous family. Also exiting and entering the plot are the Bainards’ hangers-on, enemies, and victims, everyone’s stories weaving in and out of one another to form a tapestry of a dysfunctional family.
This book is the fictional debut of history writer Robert H. Patton. His style reflects his past; Cajun Waltz is written in the style of novelized nonfiction, and Patton draws on actual historical events and people to give the story bite. In the style of southern gothic tragedy, all the characters in Cajun Waltz (even the protagonists, such as they are) are deeply flawed, and occasionally difficult to sympathize with.The book being set in the 1920s through the 1950s, the issue of race indeed comes up, but is largely discarded later in the book. The book also features two women prominently: Bonnie Bainard (daughter of Richie) and Adele (one of the family’s victims) who choose very different (and not necessarily successful) routes to deal with the casual misogyny (and violence) of both their era, and the Bainard family.
In all, this book is a quick read and difficult to put down once started. I think it speaks well of the author’s characters when I want to reach through the page and slap/strangle a few of them. History buffs, or those into historical fiction will enjoy this book.
A copy of this book was provided by the author via Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.Cajun Waltz is currently available for purchase.
More reviews are available on my blog.
[...]

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 16, 2016
Unfortunately, with a small taste of power and control, we find that Richie Bainard is not exactly a very good person. He is a violent and unfaithful drunk, terrorizing his family, friends, and mistress.
Like any good Greek tragedy, the sins of the father carry forward to the next generation. Here we have the twins: Bonnie, cold and pathologically calculating, and R.J., shiftless and casually violent. And then there is Seth, Bonnie and R.J.’s half brother, partially blinded and crippled in an accident as a child, trying to feel his way free of his poisonous family. Also exiting and entering the plot are the Bainards’ hangers-on, enemies, and victims, everyone’s stories weaving in and out of one another to form a tapestry of a dysfunctional family.
This book is the fictional debut of history writer Robert H. Patton. His style reflects his past; Cajun Waltz is written in the style of novelized nonfiction, and Patton draws on actual historical events and people to give the story bite. In the style of southern gothic tragedy, all the characters in Cajun Waltz (even the protagonists, such as they are) are deeply flawed, and occasionally difficult to sympathize with.The book being set in the 1920s through the 1950s, the issue of race indeed comes up, but is largely discarded later in the book. The book also features two women prominently: Bonnie Bainard (daughter of Richie) and Adele (one of the family’s victims) who choose very different (and not necessarily successful) routes to deal with the casual misogyny (and violence) of both their era, and the Bainard family.
In all, this book is a quick read and difficult to put down once started. I think it speaks well of the author’s characters when I want to reach through the page and slap/strangle a few of them. History buffs, or those into historical fiction will enjoy this book.
A copy of this book was provided by the author via Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.Cajun Waltz is currently available for purchase.
More reviews are available on my blog.
[...]
