Love and marriage follow in short order, surprising Bean, who feels that her husband is not only the best thing to happen to her, but the only good thing.Then Mick vanishes leading amateur hikers--or "tuna" as the guides call them--up Mt. McKinley. Suddenly, Bean is thrown back upon herself and into the company of Mick's mother Hanna, an arthritic woman in her seventies who believes that "a little larceny is good for the circulation."The pair chafe at first, but eventually become partners in a road trip back to California. Mike's disappearance feels like a hole in the heart, they decide, and Hanna tells Bean to prize that hole; it's something no one can take away from her. With gentle humor, pathos, and boundless stores of hope, Marquis writes of Bean's struggle with early widowhood, loss, and moving on.An avid bird-watcher, Bean takes much of her wisdom from the Pemberton Guide to Alaska Birds. Like the globe-crossing birds she so admires, she has struggled to get aloft, but for a delicious, perhaps fleeting moment in this marvelous novel, we see her glide.Book Magazine selected Christopher Marquis as one of "Ten To Watch In 2003" for this "Proulxian saga." With its first-rate evocation of landscape and its affectionately drawn characters, A Hole in the Heart marks the publication debut of a prodigiously talented writer.

    They fell in love with it. This title tells of their love affair with the house; from the ups and downs of buying and renovating it, to the challenge of becoming part of the local French community.

    He brilliantly conveys what it was like to be facing death, day after day, night after night, with never a bed to sleep in nor a hot meal to go home to. This is warfare in the raw ' brutal, yet humorous, immensely tragic, but sadly, all true.

    As they take on the management of their new employers’ majestic house, will the opportunities to create luscious food for the guests and explore rural France enable them to create a dream life? Or will French officialdom, family illness and a sudden career curveball send them hurrying home to New Zealand?Perfect for fans of Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence, Janine Marsh’s My Good Life in France and Beth Haslam’s Fat Dogs and French Estates.

    That was on his first day at the front.Thrown into an open field to face German tanks and artillery fire, with only rifles and machine guns to defend themselves with, almost 2,000 men of his regiment were wiped out in only six days at the Eastern Front. At this rate, Ivan struggled to comprehend how he would survive the hundreds of battles that lay before him, with death seeming to be the only certainty.In his raw and trenchant memoir, Ivan recounts the terror and despair faced by a Red Army soldier on the Eastern Front.He has no sympathy for Stalin and his incompetent commanders, who sought awards and recognition at the expense of their soldiers’ lives. He simply wanted to serve his country.It is rare to find first-hand accounts of the Great Patriotic War from Red Army soldiers, as many did not survive to tell the tale. For the first time, Ivan reveals his gripping recollections of battles, times, places, and people encountered throughout World War II, from when he was drafted in 1941 until their victory in 1945.These recollections he dared not put on paper until 1992.

    Their apartment in the Marais district is filled with wonderful food, accomplished friends, and good wine. All of this changes when Wesley loses his job and an attractive, magnetic woman enters their lives. Suddenly, in Katharine Davis' atmospheric first novel Capturing Paris, the sights, smells and sounds of Paris are cast in a different light, and may never be the same.... [R]eaders with a soft spot for the city of lights will want to give this a look. - Publishers Weekly

    She knows she must pay for what she did, even if it wasn't planned, but will the jury believe her?_________________________________________________________________________________A domestic noir, suspense-filled psychological drama about heartbreak and betrayal, Sleep reveals what drives a woman to murder.Deals with the sensitive subjects of miscarriage and depression.

    

    Together they discover that they have a connection to the same man, Ralph D'Olivier, and vow to unravel the mystery of his death.After narrowly escaping capture by the Germans, Alice is lifted out of France and taken to a hospital for wounded officers where she meets Lil, a working-class northern girl, working as a nurse. Though worlds apart, Alice and Lil form a friendship, and Alice discovers Lil is also linked to Ralph D'Olivier.Soon, the war irrevocably changes each of these women and they are thrust into a world of heartache and strife beyond anything they have had to endure before. Can they clear Ralph's name and find a lasting love and happiness for themselves?

    He was sure he heard a noise outside. It sounded like a twig snapping. Under normal circumstances it would have meant nothing, but in the silence of the forest every sound was magnified. There it was again. This time it was closer and his instinct told him it wasn’t the wolves. He reached for his gun and quietly looked out through the window. The moon was on the wane, wrapped in the soft gauze of snowfall and it wasn’t easy to see. Maybe it was a fox, or even a deer. Then he heard it again, right outside the door. He cocked his gun, pressed his body flat against the wall next to the door, and waited. The room was in total darkness and his senses were heightened. After a few minutes, he heard the soft click of the door latch.” February 1944. Preparations for the D-Day invasion are well advanced. When contact with Belvedere, one of the Resistance networks in the Jura region of Eastern France, is lost, Elizabeth Maxwell, is sent back to the region to find the head of the network, her husband Guy Maxwell.It soon becomes clear that the network has been betrayed. An RAF airdrop of supplies was ambushed by the Gestapo, and many members of the Resistance have been killed.Surrounded on all sides by the brutal Gestapo and the French Milice, and under constant danger of betrayal, Elizabeth must unmask the traitor in their midst, find her husband, and help him to rebuild Belvedere in time for SOE operations in support of D-Day.

    But they wondered: Can we fit in? And maybe become French ourselves?Follow their adventures as they slowly unlock the mysteries of France…- Is it true that French people are like coconuts? - Can you learn to argue like a French person? - What books have changed French lives? - Most important of all, how do you keep your soup from exploding?There’s more to becoming French than just learning the language. If you want the inside scoop on la belle France, you won’t want to miss this delightful book!

    It is better to study her annals than those of any other one country in Europe, if the reader would get a general view of universal history. France has been a participant in, or interested spectator of, nearly every great war or diplomatic contest for over a thousand years; and a very great proportion of all the religious, intellectual, social, and economic movements which have affected the world either began in France or were speedily caught up and acted upon by Frenchmen soon after they had commenced their working elsewhere.Contents: The Land of the Gauls and the French – The Roman Province and the Frankish Kingdom – From Franks to Frenchmen – The Golden Age of Feudalism: 996-1270 – Life in the Feudal Ages – The Dawn of the Modern Era: 1270-1483. The Hundred Years' War – The Turbulent Sixteenth Century: 1483-1610 – The Great Cardinal and His Successor – Louis XIV, the Sun King–His Work in France – Louis XIV Dominator of Europe – The Wane of the Old Monarchy – France the Homeland of New Ideas – Old France on the Eve of the Revolution – The Fiery Coming of the New Régime: 1789-92 – The Years of Blood and Wrath: 1792-95 – Napoleon Bonaparte, as Master of Europe – The Napoleonic Régime in France. The Consulate and the Empire – "Glory and Madness"–Moscow, Leipzig, and Waterloo – The Restored Bourbons and their Exit – The "Citizen-King" and the Rule of the Bourgeois – Radical Outbreaks and the Reaction to Cæsarism. The Second Republic: 1848-51 – Napoleon the Little: His Prosperity and Decadence – The Crucifixion by Prussia: 1870-71 – The Painful Birth of the Third Republic – The Years of Peace: 1879-1914 – France Herself AgainThis book was originally intended for members of the American army who naturally would desire to know something of the past of the great French nation on whose soil they expected to do battle for Liberty. The happy but abrupt close of the war vitiated this purpose, but the volume was continued and was extended on a somewhat more ambitious scale to assist in making intelligent Americans in general acquainted with the history of a country with which we have established an ever-deepening friendship...

    An office worker, she lives at home, along with her parents and spirited younger brother, Bertie. But her life is transformed when she meets handsome young man, Edmond Derwent, son of one of the wealthiest families in the small town of Larchbury, and student at Cambridge University.The couple are falling deeply in love when war breaks out and, eager to do his duty for England, Edmond signs up as an officer. The couple plan to be wed, eager to start a new life together - but their happiness is short-lived when Edmond is sent to Flanders to lead his men into battle. Amy trains as a VAD nurse and is soon sent to France, where she sees the true horror of war inflicted on the brave young men sent to fight.Separated by war, Edmond and Amy share their feelings through emotional letters sent from the front line. But when Edmond is critically wounded at Ypres, their love faces the biggest test of all – can their love stay strong while the world around them is crumbling?A romantic, emotional saga set in WW1 – readers of Rosie Goodwin, Katie Flynn and Val Wood will be captivated by this story of love.

    First published in 1876, Marthe was an important landmark in J.K. Huysmans’s literary career, his first excursion into the novel, which propelled him into the growing ranks of the Naturalist movement. Marthe was one of the first French novels to directly address the subject of prostitution, which later became a central theme for many novelists, Impressionist painters and poets. Set in and around the demi-monde of the Parisian music hall, it centers on a would-be actress, Marthe, who works in one of the lowest dives in Paris, who tells the story of her brief, and ultimately doomed, relationship with Léo, a romantic searching for something to take the place of his lost illusions.

    To make a friend in another country is a wonderment—a small miracle. Pardon My French follows the lives of an American couple who have embraced a daunting mission: Not to be spectators in France, but to be absorbed by France.Amidst the minefields of linguistic faux pas, the perplexities of French gestures, the exquisite and often exotic cuisine, and the splendor of Christmas on the Mediterranean—see what it is like for an occasionally gruff American to be adopted into a new family. Witness the hugging, the teasing, and the laughter that follows, when nothing on earth could be more perfect. Experience what it is like to fall in love with the French.Follow the adventures of the author as he pits his rather staid and conventional driving skills against the French speed demons of Languedoc. Step into his sneakers as he tests his basketball prowess against the young French bucks adorned with backward ball caps and over-the-knee Chicago Bulls game shorts. Watch how he frolics in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time with a French topless companion. Marvel as he sits in with a world-class French jazz band. Observe him overcome his shyness in talking to the beautiful nude model from his painting class in the studio atop the village police station. Envision how he learns to dance the tango with his head upright, his chest expanded, and his strides befitting a newly adorned French god—one with sensuality on his mind.