A Bookish Blog
Wolf Hunt: The Napoleonic Murders by Armand Cabasson takes place during the Napoleonic wars while the Austrians and the French battle over some small villages by the Danube. The mystery takes second place to the author’s impressive research of the time, whether it would be battlefield tactics or a Viennese ball.
The center of the story is a group of kids from various classes who get arrested and interrogated. Most of the kids are children to upper class parents (generals, politicians, entertainers) and think they’ll be all right. However, Stalin sees this as an opportunity to test the loyalty of the parents to the state (meaning himself) and uses them to his benefit.
The story revolves around the French roundup of Jews during WWII. A little girl, named Sarah, which escaped death and the search for her little brother whom she locked in a cupboard before the French police took their family away.
A historical fiction book about the Marquis de Montespan and his new wife, Athénaïs who becomes the preferred mistress of King Louis XIV. The novel was spent many weeks topping the French charts and was translated by Alison Anderson.
I truly enjoyed the fact that the author pays attention to history and imagines what it would have been like for his protagonists to prepare for battle and death. Mr. Pressfield understands the notions of honor in the context of ancient Greece and writes about it in a moving, serious way.
Midwife Elspeth Howell returns to her home after spending a few months away working. Elspeth can’t wait to get back; she has gifts for each of her five children and her husband.
What Elspeth finds, however, is a bloodbath. Her husband and children are murdered and one son, 12 year old Caleb, is missing. But Caleb is hiding and is so startled that he shoots his mother.
A novel following the life of a Spanish woman’s journey from her humble beginnings as a poor seamstress, to an English spy during World War II.
Rose Manon is an American journalist, born in Nevada, living in New York trying hard to deal with the attitudes of the 1930s. Rose has been posted to Paris with a looming global war on everyone’s radar.
During her time Rose will deal with a lover, a country which doesn’t know what each day will bring, anti-Semitism, and her hidden identity of a Jew. Before she leaves Europe, Rose will have to make some difficult decisions which will follow her throughout her life.
It is refreshing to read a story from the aggressor’s point of view, usually we get a sore look from the victim’s eyes. This aggressor, however, is justifying his acts, however horrendous. In war and under pressure, as well as mob mentality, regular people commit atrocities which weeks or even days before were unthinkable to them.
In the early 1940s, Gracianna Lasaga, a young girl from the mountains, sets her sights on reaching America. However, soon Gracianna is entangled in world War II and Nazi occupied Paris. Soon Gracianna finds a way to fight against the occupiers while also trying to achieve her dream and help her sister.
