Where To Buy Whom the Gods Love Julian Kestrel Mystery by Kate Ross At The Lowest Price?

Why Buy A Whom the Gods Love Julian Kestrel Mystery by Kate Ross?
In 1825, while having a party, a successful young man with an uncertain reputation is murdered, and after the police fail to find the killer, the young mans father calls upon private detective Julian Kestrel to solve the mystery. Reprint. K. LJ.

Over 15 Five Star Customer Reviews On Amazon!

Outstanding plot, detective, and characters
The author weaves words into works of art! This writing is the stuff that made Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, Miss Marple, etc. The author is incredibly talented at telling a tale that is both unpredictable and delectable. I loved the three I’ve read thus far, and can’t wait to read the last on my list. What a shame there won’t be more Julian Kestrel mysteries.

Kate Ross’ death put an end to beautifully written books
I have read all of Kate Ross’ books and was enthralled by each one! Go right now and order her four books. I can’t put into words how much I enjoyed them. You will too. Julian Kestral, the protagonist, is one that you will not easily forget. I loved all of them.

Brilliant
This is one of the best historical mysteries I’ve ever read. And that’s saying something, because I am very picky about historical mysteries.

This book combines everything I love about a mystery: a tight, intriguing, well-written plot, suspense, fascinating characters, red herrings, and beautiful prose. Kate Ross’s writing is stellar. Her characters speak in the formal, upper class manner you’d expect from this time period, but her writing doesn’t get bogged down with too much flowery, false, hard to read prose. The dialogue is simply wonderful – it’s stylish yet simple to read.

Julian Kestrel is one of the best protaganists I’ve ever come across. He’s a “dandy” and a darling of high society, but he’s also compassionate, just, intelligent, hard working, and has a wonderful wry sense of humor. He is the kind of character you cheer for.

I understand that Ms. Ross has passed away and we only get to enjoy four books from her. I will now eagerly purchase the remaining three and treasure them.

Enter a new Sherlock Holmes
When I first read Kate Ross, I relaized that here was a lady who did extraordinary research on the Restoration Period in England and who could manage to spin a great yarn. I also began to note that she could manage as many as 30 characters in her tale and not bore the reader. Julian Kestrel is a remarkable detective, armed only with curiosity and deductive reasoning. He predates Holmea and shows the same remarkable accumen. It is only sad that Ms. Ross was only able to publish 4 of her works in her lifetime. Those 4 are gems, and those she might have written would also be gems.

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Ordinary Love and Good Will by Jane Smiley – Save 15% Today!

Why Buy A Ordinary Love and Good Will by Jane Smiley?
From Jane Smiley, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Thousand Acres: a pair of novellas chronicling difficult choices that reshape the dynamics of two very different families.

In Ordinary Love, Smiley focuses on a woman’s infidelity and the lasting, indelible effects it leaves on her children long after her departure. Good Will describes a father who realizes how his son has been affected by his decision to lead a counterculture life and move his family to a farm. As both stories unfold, Smiley gracefully raises the questions that confront all families with the characteristic style and insight that has marked all of her work.

Features

• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices
• Condition: NEW
• ISBN13: 9780307279095
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Over 8 Five Star Customer Reviews On Amazon!

Nothing ordinary about this storyteller.
Smiley gives us an intimate view into two very different families and the ways in which their different parenting styles affected their children’s lives irrevocably. Smiley is a master of character development. When each story begins, you have a certain view of the protagonist and other characters. As the stories unfold, your feelings about each character change. This is a book to be read more than once.

A commentary on family values and the beauty of simplicity…
This book, as you could probably tell, is made up of two stories: Ordinary Love and Good Will, just as the title says. Although they’re entirely different stories they have similar themes as well as aspects that contrast and compliment one another. That makes this “package deal” necessary to allow the author to communicate what she envisioned.

Both stories are similar in that the protagonists are content with the simple things in life. This seems to be an attempt to evoke an appreciation of the everyday things we take for granted.

Both stories also share a strong emphasis on family values. Throughout both stories the results that their family values render allows the reader to contrast the lives of the characters with that of their own. This is also a source of how the stories differ.

Ordinary Love has a protagonist that is very laid back and allows her children to become whatever they aspire to be. This often makes her seem uncaring. Ordinary Love shows the family dynamics of such values.

Good Will focuses more on the other extreme of family values. The father imposes his ways of a simple life free of money. Though he has good intent, in a modern world it’s understandably met with resistance. This story tells of a family that lives such a lifestyle and the results.

Both stories are a sort of commentary on the two extremes of family values: complacence and imposition. The author’s intent seemed to be to provoke readers to choose a set of family values somewhere between those extremes.

Overall both stories were quite good. I had a preference for Good Will but without Ordinary Love much of the message would be lost. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who found what I outlined above intriguing.

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Trans-Atlantyk by Witold Gombrowicz – Save 10% Today!

Why Buy A Trans-Atlantyk by Witold Gombrowicz?
A semi-autobiographical, satirical novel that throws into perspective all of Gombrowiczs major literary, philosophical, psychological and social concerns. Throughout the book Gombrowicz ridicules the self-centred pomposity of the Polish community in Argentina.

Over 9 Five Star Customer Reviews On Amazon!

Polish Tragedy Concealed in Farcical Comedy
In a world where the real Polish Foreign Minister referred to himself often in public as “the one and only Josef Beck,” the fictional embassy staff in Argentina are absurdly believable. The author’s pain at the renewed partition and immolation of his noble republic by Hitler’s blitzkrieg causes him to lash out at Poliosh traditions and honor, which, contrary to Polish expectations, were vastly incapable of achieving the anticipated victory parade by the Polish Hussaria cavalry down Unter der Linden in Berlin. Consequently, he questions the virtues of the patriarchal Fatherland, but the novela ends without resolution of the conflict. The invention of an oh so campy Argentine drag queen as a principal protagonist in the rambling tale with an unlikely passion for younger boys expands the comedic heights of this unique tale. Few sacred cows are left when the dust settles.

Hilarious and brilliant.
The only novel I have ever turned directly from the last page back to the front page to begin reading again. Laugh-out-loud funny; brilliant; and so unique in the world of literature that it beggars description. Just read it.

Roar with laughter: you can do it
Yale University Press did a fine job of promoting Witold Gombrowicz with its anachronistic translation by Carolyn French and Nina Karsov of TRANS-ATLANTYK, published in 1994. The Introduction by Stanislaw Baranczak describes how Witold Gombrowicz arrived in Buenos Aires on August 21, 1939, eleven days before the Nazi invasion of Poland presented Gombrowicz with the fundamental dilemma of human existence in which he refused to take the ocean liner Boleslaw Chobry back to Europe. His new situation obviously called for some literary explanation of how his life had changed since he had been lauded in his homeland as the author of the novel FERDYDURKE. As the Introduction explains, the world had to wait until 1953 for the little book, 122 pages, that captures how events had put Gombrowicz into a situation so intense that TRANS-ATLANTYK was his `Life Line,’ to incorporate by reference a great song by Harry Nilsson from a great cartoon story called `The Point.’

“Begun in 1948, it appeared only in 1953, sixteen years after FERDYDURKE. To be sure, Gombrowicz did not spend all of that time chiseling TRANS-ATLANTYK’s fine points. During most of the war and postwar years he was reduced to struggling for survival, coping with extreme poverty and wasting his energies on a job as a bank clerk offered to him by a Polish banker in Buenos Aires. According to Gombrowicz, he wrote TRANS-ATLANTYK on his desk at the bank, hiding the manuscript whenever his superior entered the room.” (p. xiii).

” . . . this novel, perhaps the most grotesquely fantastic ever written in Polish, is also the most personal and engaging of all Gombrowicz’s works of fiction.” (p. xiv).

In Poland, “TRANS-ATLANTYK appeared in 1957 and immediately became a modern classic, in spite of the modest printing of ten thousand copies.” (p. xx).

On a personal level, Stanislaw Baranczak credits TRANS-ATLANTYK with helping a group of Polish literature majors prepare for their final exam on Marxist political economy in May 1967 by roaring with laughter the night before the exam at lines like, “I’m not so mad as to have any views These Days or not to have them.” (p. xxi).

A Note on Pronunciation on page xxviii includes the author’s name:

Witold Gombrowicz VEE-told gom-BROH-veetch

Whereupon I commented to my neighbor, and quite loudly so that he there could hear: “I don’t like Butter too Buttery, Noodles too Noodly, Millet too Millety and Barley too Barley!” (p. 32).

Cursed that warp of Mankind! Cursed that swine of ours wallowing in mud! Cursed that Slough of ours! Indeed that one who Walked there, with whom I Walked, was no Bull, but a cow! (p. 36).
A Man who, being a Man, fain would not be a Man but after Men chases, and after them Flies, admires, oh, Loves, Heats for them, Lusts for them, Hungers for them, makes up to them, simpers, adulates them, him folks hereabouts give the contemptuous name “puto.” Upon seeing those lips, the which although a Man’s with woman’s rouge bled, I could have no trace of doubt that my lot was to have happen to me a Puto. It was he and I who before all Walked, Walked as in a couple forever coupled! (p. 36).

If made into a movie, a potential Oscar winner !
Gombrowicz’s Trans-atlantyk, a perfect novel in its pure form, still waits to be fully appreciated by the international reading community. When it is ultimately discovered by the English-speaking reader, it could be made into a movie that has never been…. It provides the best material for a 100% Oscar winner… And its sense of humor is a killer!!!

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Where To Buy Villette Signet Classics by Charlotte Brontë At The Lowest Price?

Why Buy A Villette Signet Classics by Charlotte Brontë?
Brontës romantic heroine Lucy Snowe, a penniless governess attempting to begin life anew in France, is an exceptional example of a great writer transforming her life into art.

Features

• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices
• Condition: NEW
• ISBN13: 9780451529220
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Over 12 Five Star Customer Reviews On Amazon!

A Great book on character development
In my view a five star book is one that touches your heart and leaves you better off as a human being. For me, Charlotte Bronte’s Villette is just such a book.

It doesn’t start out that way. The novel is divided into three parts which I might label, despair, hope and fulfillment. The story is told in the first person by the book’s protagonist, Lucy Snowe. At the start Lucy is 14 years old and, bereft of parents, is living in 19th century England with her godmother, Mrs. Bretton and her 16-year-old son, John Graham, a good-hearted, fun loving boy. Into this household comes 7-year-old Polly whose mother has just died and whose father is arranging to move to Europe. Polly takes to the antics of John Graham but largely ignores the kind efforts of the bland Lucy. This beginning sets the tone for Lucy as a retiring introvert with low self-esteem and expectations from life.

The arrangement soon breaks up as Polly and her father leave and Lucy sets out to begin her working life. She finds a job taking care of a disabled woman and appears ready to settle for (she says) 30 years of living a marginal life. But fate intervenes when the woman dies and Lucy sets out again to find a means of support. She decides to go to France and on the way over meets a young girl who attends a school for girls in Villette and who, accordingly, suggests that Lucy seek employment there. Arriving at night, and in one of the many unrealistic coincidences that pervade the book, Lucy finds the school run by Mrs. Beck, a capable but prying women. Initially Lucy is employed to take care of Mrs. Beck’s three small children but she soon is given the job of English teacher. The year progresses, but Lucy’s negative worldview dominates. She criticizes the other teachers, and in particular the professor of literature, M. Paul. The novel reaches an initial climax at the end of the first part (Chapter 15,The Long Vacation) when left alone at the school for the summer Lucy becomes very despondent and, wandering out into a storm goes to a Catholic church, “confesses” to a priest and then going out collapses on the street. In another coincidence, she is found by the priest and a doctor just happens to be nearby.

Part two begins with Lucy waking up in seemingly familiar surroundings. She discovers that the doctor who rescued her is not other that John Graham, now in the ten years that have elapsed since she first lived with him has become “Dr. John” and has moved to Villette with his mother. Lucy stays with Mrs. Bretton and Dr. John for some time until she recovers physically. But she also begins to evolve psychologically. She finds comfort in the friendship these two people offer her, but her happiness is still a result of the actions of others. Upon recovery she returns to the school and begins to receive a series of letters from Dr. John. She treasures these letters and they become her only source of happiness.

At this point Polly and her father, now improbably a count, re-enter the story and Dr. John meets her by rescuing her from a fire at a theatre performance which he and Lucy attended. The inevitable happens and Polly and Dr. John fall in love. But here Lucy shows her continuing growth. She realizes that her happiness and fulfillment is not to be found with Dr. John and she puts away his letters.

As the story progresses through parts 2 and 3 it comes to focus on the evolving relationship between Lucy and Professor Paul. A number of circumstances develop, including the conflict between Lucy’s Protestantism and the Roman Catholicism of M. Paul and the French people. Mysteries abound and things are never what they seem. As the book moves toward its climax relationships are settled and finally a bittersweet ending occurs.

I found the character development of Lucy and M. Paul in particular, and the evolution of their relationship, to be the most outstanding aspects of this book and the reason why, in the end, I gave it five stars. Bronte herself is said to have stated that she thought Villette to be her best work. Whether you will agree or not, it is certainly worth reading. Just do not give up on what seems at first to be a dull and uninspiring book featuring a dull and uninspiring main character. Finally I would say that one person gave this book a poor rating (one star) because “the plot turns on improbable circumstances.” But Bronte was not especially concerned with plot in this novel; she was concerned with character development and in showing how a women in Victorian times could evolve. That is the meaning and greatness of the book, not the plot.

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Where To Buy Questionable Remains A Lindsey Chamberlain Novel Lindsay Chamberlain Mysteries by Beverly Connor At The Lowest Price?

Why Buy A Questionable Remains A Lindsey Chamberlain Novel Lindsay Chamberlain Mysteries by Beverly Connor?
Mans eternal quest for gold proves as enduring as it is fatal when forensic archaeologist Lindsay Chamberlain unearths a four-hundred-year-old mystery — and a mondern-day murder. Vacationing in Tennessee, Lindsay studies the bones of a centuries-old corpse hiding a fascinating secret. Shes also asked to look into the suspicious deaths of two adventurous cavers whose fatal foray into Hells Slide spells murder for one family member.

But bones dont lie, and before long, Lindsay knows shes digging up trouble. Someone wants the case to remain closed — and the mounting threats tell her shes getting closer to the truth. But as murder old and new come together in shocking ways, Lindsay finds herself digging for her life — to survive the clever trap of a killer.

Over 10 Five Star Customer Reviews On Amazon!

Mystery fans, look here!
There must be a reason why Beverly Connor’s mysteries starring Lindsey Chamberlain are not as well known as Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta mysteries, but I’ll be darned if I can figure it out. They are fantastic reads! I’ve read all five in the series — bought two and borrowed three from the library — and know I must buy the ones I don’t have, so I can have the pleasure of re-reading them.

Questionable Remains is my favorite of the series, since it seamlessly blends a modern mystery with one hundreds of years old. The details are fascinating, and Lindsey Chamberlain is a protagonist to celebrate — she’s smart, resourceful, doesn’t take any guff from anyone, yet she’s not SuperWoman or perpetually angry, like the aforementioned Kay Scarpetta, whom I have grown to dislike intensely.

My only complaint would be that Ms. Connor cannot possibly write as fast as I can read. Next book, please!!

The ultimate cold case file
This is a terrific mystery series. Beverly Connors weaves tales from the present and the distant past together to create an exciting novel. You’ll love Lindsay Chamberlain, she is an ambitious, smart woman with an uncanny ability to read a murder scene-even one centuries old. You will not be disappointed in any of the books in this series.

GREAT READ!
This second installment of Beverly Connor’s Lindsay Chamberlain series is better than the first. The author used a lot of very intricate plotting, but with a very smooth flow within the story. I loved the way Ms. Connor weaves all the “small” details into the big picture. She shows us that if you just look at one or two details, you will miss the whole story. In this story, the author uses all these seemingly unrelated events to put together a wonderful story. Of what life was like when the Spanish was discovering this country. And what greed will do to people both past and present. This is a wonderful series, it has good character development and plots. I have still to get the murderer right! Even the past plot line fools me. I thought I had at least that one figured out. Once again, Ms. Connor tricks the reader into thinking things are as they seem. Again, I recommend this book to you. If you like a bit of history mixed into your mysteries, all the better. You don’t have to be a history buff though to enjoy this excellent series.

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