Sunday, December 1, 2013

Summers in Maine

Take a trip down memory lane to long summers spent at the camp or at the family house on the coast. The memoir is lovingly built and gives a believable and charming picture of family summers spent in Maine in the 1960s. Up to the point where tragedy strikes and the reader encounters the dark side of backwater America.


Thursday, November 28, 2013

Who Would Want to go to Dijon?

Who would ever want to go to Dijon? This question and variants thereof is the most asked in this book. But it all starts in London with a kidnapping gone wrong. Flight and chase take the reader through France to Paris and from there to Dijon. No car races and police investigation, I'm afraid, the year is 1780.

Ashtyn Long

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Christmas The Royal Way

When you look at Christmas traditions in Britain, they look quite German. The reason lies with the Royal family which excelled at importing German Princesses and with them all kinds of traditions to England. While the Christmas tree and its decoration is a German import, there are other foreigners to be named, too. Pantomime, turkey, and Santa Claus are among them.

Queen Elizabeth II

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Mystery in the Pyrenees Mountains

The Pyrenees Mountains are impressive enough with any need to make them even more mysterious than they already are. But trust Mary Stewart to manage just that. If you know the mountains, you will know she has been there. As with all her mystery novels, this one is as much travel guide as it is mystery story. It is bound up in the local history of this wild region marking the border between France and Spain.

Castellebre

Sunday, November 17, 2013

English Intrigue in Louis XV's France

Dive into Paris and Versailles during the time of King Louis XV. Corruption and intrigue are ripe. France is an open playing field for the Duke of Avon. the English peer has earned the nickname Satanas from his enemies. Broke as a young man, he had toured Europe as a gamester. He gambled a young Austrian noble out of his fortune and retired to enjoy a lavish and sumptuous lifestyle.

Brad Pitt