A Free Man of Color (1997), the first in Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January series, is set in New Orleans in the early 1830s.
Whites didn’t understand how news traveled so quickly, being too well-bred to be seen prying. Having set themselves up as gods and loudly established their own importance, they never ceased to be surprised that those whose lives might be affected by their doings kept up on them with the interest they themselves accorded only to characters in Balzac’s novels.
A Free Man of Color (Benjamin January #1) by Barbara Hambly
La Comedie Humaine by Balzac 