It is heartbreaking to read about the destruction of an attractive and lively personality. Yet that is what Brigitte Hamann’s biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria does. Titled THE RELUCTANT EMPRESS, Ms. […]
Marjorie Merriweather Post (1887-1973) led a long and interesting life that encompassed two world wars, three daughters and four marriages. I generally do not enjoy reading biography as too often it can […]
Readers of historical novels frequently complain about the large cast of characters that are typical of these novels, and how hard it is to remember everyone’s name. Yet Sharon Kay Penman manages […]
I had never heard of Ken Follett until a family member begged me to read him. I started with PILLARS OF THE EARTH and just loved it. WORLD WITHOUT END is just […]
YSABEL is a magical blend of history and fantasy, set in the ancient cathedral of Saint Sauveur in Aix-en-Provence. When teenaged Ned Marriner, son of a famous photographer, finds himself at loose […]
As everyone knows, PILLARS OF THE EARTH is a huge novel that takes place in England over a 50-year period from about 1121 to 1172. The novel begins and ends in violence: […]
Mary Sharratt is such a talented author. I first “met” her between the pages of a book when I read THE VANISHING POINT, a poignant portrayal of an unwanted English girl sent […]
Like most others, I thought this volume would conclude the goings on of our party of quirky characters – ruthless Ishraq, horse whisperer & general factotum Freize, dispossessed noblewoman Isolde, Luca Vero […]
Our cast of characters – Brother Peter the suspicious priest, Luca Vero the Inquirer for a shadowy order (Order of Darkness) headed by a shadowy individual (Milord), Isolde the dispossessed noblewoman, her […]
At the center of this tale, set in Italy in the mid-fifteenth century, a natural disaster sends the local people into a tizzy, and they blame the young women (whom we met […]
