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.
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.
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| Queen Elizabeth II |
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.
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Castellebre
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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.
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| Brad Pitt |
This mystery book will take you to Austria's beautiful countryside. As it is all about a horse, you also get a lot of history about the Imperial Stud and the Spanish Riding School. As usual with Mary Stewart, her landscape descriptions are masterful and may sway your decision as to where to take your Austrian holiday. And the mystery will keep you guessing to the end.
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Styria
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How can I put this delicately? The book I am going to tell you about is fantasy fiction with some serious flaws. And yet, at the end I will recommend it to you to read. It's main weakness is its story-line. It has holes like Swiss cheese.
If you think that writers or authors are a happy family, think again. They may be part of one big writing family, but the family can be highly dysfunctional. Authors are in fact able to be vitriolic in their abuse of other writers albeit with some style. Unlike the often incoherent mutterings of common internet trolls, their comments come with truly horrendous barbs, sharp like scalpels, and honed like harpoons.
