Ever since the assassination of King Louis XIII and the overthrow of his chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, France has been in political and military turmoil. The possibility—even the likelihood—of revolution hovers in the background.The new king Gaston, whom many consider an usurper, is no friend of France’s Protestants, known as the Huguenots. The fears and hostility of the Huguenots toward the French crown have only been heightened by the knowledge brought back in time by the Americans of the town of Grantville. Half a century in the future, the French king of the time would revoke the Edict of Nantes of 1598, which proclaimed that the rights of Huguenots would be respected.At the center of all this turmoil is the universally recognized leader of the Huguenots: Duke Henri de Rohan. He knows from the same up-time history books that he is “scheduled” to die less than two years in the future and he has pressing problem on his hands. His estranged wife and brother are siding with the usurper Gaston and plotting against him. Still worse, his sole child and heir is his nineteen-year-old daughter Marguerite. He believes he has less than two years to find a suitable husband for her—but acceptable Calvinist noblemen, French or foreign, are sparse at the moment.What’s a father to do? ** Views: 541
Special Agent Luna Roosberg lives and breathes her job. Who needs a personal life when work is so rewarding? When a new case sends her to investigate a local motorcycle club, covering as the president's new flavor of the week, the lines between professional and personal quickly start to blur. Although the Arrow's Edge MC stays mostly on the right side of the law since Ouray took the gavel, the appearance of the feds at their gate can still rattle his cage.When a string of robberies points squarely in Ouray's direction, he's forced to cooperate and put the blonde, prim and proper half-pint on the back of his bike. With pressure mounting both in—and outside—the club, Ouray no longer knows who he can trust, except the woman who is shaking up his life—and stirring his blood. Views: 541
Kannjawou: A Novel of Haiti by Lyonel Trouillot Kannjawou, the title of this novel by acclaimed Haitian author Lyonel Trouillot, is the Haitian Creole expression meaning a big party. In this energetic literary celebration of Haiti and its capital city Port-Au-Prince in the early 2000s, Trouillot embodies the nation’s indomitable spirit in the voice of his narrator, an anonymous,world-weary,twenty-something male student, who in a keenly observed voice depicts a country entering a new era after years of dictatorship, oppression, corruption, and the chaos wrought by the most recent foreign arrivals: the international peace-keeping forces sent to restore order after the departure of the U.S. Marines, known as “the Big Boots.” In a series of entries from his journal over a span of several months, our young protagonist introduces us to his world within a world--a community center in Port-au-Prince on the corner of Burial Street, that leads to the vast cemetery, and across the street from the touristic bar, Kannjawou. Here we meet a motley group of friends, lovers, revolutionaries, compatriots, dreamers, schemers, and mentors, all under the watchful eye and wise counsel of Man Jeanne, the proprietress of this center, that is alternately a welcome roost for the night, a gathering place where a warm meal and fellowship await, and a refuge from the poverty, squalor and overall disintegration of the city around him. He introoduces to his core of friends, the “gang of five,”among whom are two beautiful young women who tend bar at Kannjawou and the men--young, old, local and foreign--who pursue them, and upon one, Sophonie, he hopelessly dotes; the wise older veterans scarred by the torture and oppression of the regimes in earlier decades; the nonchalant tourists and foreign officials who populate the bar; and the gentle mentor, rival in love, and father figure to the group, known lovingly to all as “the little professor.” But, just as this is a coming-of-age tale for our “chronicler of lost footsteps,” as Mam Jeanne has dubbed the narrator, so too is it a story of a country in the throes of change. And so too must change and along with it, tragedy, visit the characters of this novel. In KANNJAWOU Trouillot has penned a love song and a swan song to that era of dispersion for Haiti’s people, many of whom were and still are compelled to leave their beloved country in search of a new life--an immigrant nation far removed from its cherished home, yet with its people always carrying with them the “kannjawou” spirit. Views: 541
