Lisette of Louisbourg by Margaret MacKay

When the convent where she has been living burns down, twelve-year-old orphan Lisette barely escapes with her life. The nuns think she died in the fire, but Lisette sees a chance to escape the drudgery of lacemaking under a cruel, greedy Mother Superior. She sets out alone to find the uncle who left her at the convent when she was six, yet things don’t go quite as she planned. When an opportunity arises to escape her troubles in France and start a new life at the Fortress of Louisbourg, clever and resourceful Lisette jumps at the chance. But is someone following her?

This middle-grade novel by the Nova Scotian author of Iain of New Scotland is set in 1749 when the British have handed the Fortress of Louisbourg back to the French.