John O. (macro1) - , Subject: Boxed set:

Date Posted: 12/24/2008 8:36 PM ET Member Since: 11/2/2008 Posts: 39 Back To Top

The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.

In this first of three books inspired by the life of Josephine Bonaparte, Sandra Gulland has created a novel of immense and magical proportions. We meet Josephine in the exotic and lush Martinico, where an old island woman predicts that one day she will be queen. The journey from the remote village of her birth to the height of European elegance is long, but Josephine's fortune proves to be true. By way of fictionalized diary entries, we traverse her early years as she marries her one true love, bears his children, and is left betrayed, widowed, and penniless. It is Josephine's extraordinary charm, cunning, and will to survive that catapults her to the heart of society, where she meets Napoleon, whose destiny will prove to be irrevocably intertwined with hers.

Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe

In beautifully imagined diary entries, Sandra Gulland continues the story of Josephine's marriage to "the Corsican, " Napoleon Bonaparte. As Napoleon's march to power erupts in political intrigues and personal betrayals, Josephine witnesses the triumphs, as well as the death and ruin, of those closest to her. The novel is set at the end of the eighteenth century, when Napoleon is General-in-Chief of the Army of Italy, and his impassioned -- and at times disturbing -- love letters provide a fascinating counterpoint to Josephine's own journal. An impressive combination of historical fidelity and fictional artistry, Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe brings the legendary Josephine and the drama of her time to vibrant life.

The Last Great Dance on Earth

The only novelist invited to appear among a group of noted scholars and experts for a four-hour PBS documentary on Napoleon, Gulland knows her characters so well she inhabits their world, and her novels enable readers to do the same. The Last Great Dance on Earth brings to life Napoleon's grand empire, its rise and fall, and Josephine's greatest tragedy: her divorce from Napoleon and his exile to Elba.Written in a spare but compelling style with finely nuanced characters and vivid setting. The Last Great Dance on Earth is a brilliant feat of historical fiction that is difficult to put down and impossible to forget.

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