Lucie had looked forward to New Year's Day for months and months.  New Year's was the gayest day of the whole year in French Louisiana, filled with parties and visits and good things to eat.  But things would be different this year.  The Americans' war was moving closer, and the fighting British and American troops might even enter New Orleans.  

She would have liked to ask the American boy who lived next door what he thought would happen, but as soon as the Coxes had moved in, Maman had ordered the gate between the gardens to be locked.  The Americans had bought Louisiana from the French, but to Maman they would always be intruders in her New Orleans.  Lucie wished she could make Maman see that now they must be Americans too. Then she could be friends with Stephen Cox...

Set in old New Orleans, The Open Gate is a lively story of an eventful and very unusual New Year's Day.

From the book description inside