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The Crown & The Kingdom
The king’s court in Paris in the early fourteenth century seethed with politics, lust, betrayal and, occasionally, brilliance. Philippe le Bel is king: he had an ongoing dispute with England, mounted a war against Flanders, and may well have killed the pope, allowing for his own choice, Celement, to become pope and move the Papal See to Avignon. He expelled the Jews from France and annihilated the order of the Knights Templar. His final year saw a scandal in the royal family, during which his three daughters-in-law were accused of adultery… and adultery is treason when the sons of kings are being betrayed.
So it was that Philippe le Bel had to sit in judgment on his daughters- in-law, and condemn them to life in prison. He did not live long enough to regret his decision. Jacques de Molay’s prediction came true: a few months after the princesses’ trial, Philippe le Bel died. The mentally deficient Louis of Navarre became king upon his father’s death, and his first official act was to have Marguerite of Burgundy strangled in her prison cell. |
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Shadowland
The most memorable time in Sean’s life was his participation in D-Day in Normandy. Now he lives with his grandson and goes every day to a senior daycare center, and his most pleasant moments are spent remembering the past even as he observes the toll that old age is taking on him.
Or is the past… always the past? |
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Légende
Philippa came from a proper convent where her passion was all about God, swirling up through the stained glass windows on spirals of incense. Aurélie came from a wild world where the words of the ancient druids were still whispered on the wind. When Philippa followed her dream and left the convent for the sea, it was Aurélie’s wild world that trapped her and sent her swirling to its depths, only to be saved by an unforeseen twist of fate.
The two women met at that intersection of their lives, and – to their own astonishment – fell in love with each other. But lesbian couples could not live in their world, so Philippa became Philippe, and they married and even adopted and raised a daughter, Mimi. Their story is told, alternately, in the three women's voices, a story that understands and mourns hatred and prejudice, but which also affirms the love and caring and commitment that can transcend even violence and death. |
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Flight
The follow-up to Wings (see below): Wife, mother, heiress to a vast fortune — lovely Caroline Asheford had everything a young woman could possibly desire. But her marriage was falling apart, and her every move was monitored by the officials of A.R.M., the aeronautics empire she would one day inherit. Only when she was soaring high above the clouds in one of A.R.M.’s planes could she escape the strictures imposed upon her by hidebound society. The advent of World War Two changed everything, reuniting Caroline with Andrew Starkey, the man she had once loved — and heir to A.R.M.’s arch-rival, Johnson Industries. Courageous and defiant, Caroline abandoned the comfortable, predictable life of a Newport socialite, becoming a pilot for Britain’s Air Transport Authority, while Andrew joined the R.A.F. Together they braved the dangers of tempestuous skies as the conflagration spread rapidly across Europe. It seemed that Caroline had fulfilled her destiny at last. But her freedom from A.R.M.’s control was to be short-lived, for the company, an international giant whose profits were increasing with each bloody battle, was preparing for a confrontation that could shatter her dreams forever…
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Wings
Sarah Martin was daring and beautiful, a California-born adventuress whose natural element was the sky. Her thrilling exploits captured the imagination of the world—and the attention of the young, rough-hewn genius, Eric Beaumont. With the help of Count Philippe de Montclair, Beaumont founded Aeroméchanique, a dynamic new company that embodied the dream they all shared…to build aircraft, to conquer the sky, to make fortunes—and history.
Together they discovered the pleasure and peril in that dream—in the gathering clouds of The Great War…the grim reality of Europe in flames…the champagne dazzle of the Jazz Age…and the end-of-the-party crash of 1929. In their passions and ambitions, triumphs and tragedies, they mirrored the turbulent age in which they lived, an age that freed them from the earthbound past to challenge uncharted skies. |