Royal Pains: A Rogues' Gallery of Brats, Brutes, and Bad Seeds
Added by: drazhar | Karma: 1455.89 | Other | 30 December 2014
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The author of Notorious Royal Marriages presents some of history's boldest, baddest, and bawdiest royals. The bad seeds on the family trees of the most powerful royal houses of Europe often became the most rotten of apples: über-violent autocrats Vlad the Impaler and Ivan the Terrible literally reigned in blood. Lettice Knollys strove to mimic the appearance of her cousin Elizabeth I and even stole her man. And Pauline Bonaparte scandalized her brother Napoleon by having a golden goblet fashioned in the shape of her breast.
Their love was legendary, their ambition flagrant and unashamed. Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife, Josephine, came to power during one of the most turbulent periods in the history of France. The story of the Corsican soldier’s incredible rise has been well documented. Now, in this spellbinding, luminous account, Kate Williams draws back the curtain on the woman who beguiled him: her humble origins, her exorbitant appetites, and the tragic turn of events that led to her undoing.
Myra Thomas, apparently dressed only in nightgown and slippers, has walked off the train somewhere along the 650 kilometres of track that crosses southern Australia's Nullarbor Plain. With two camels and a dog, Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte sets out in search of her. He finds more than he bargains for. This is vintage Upfield, set in some of the most mysterious and unforgiving country in the world--the Australian desert.
Ray Gillen, lucky lottery winner of £12,500, went for a swim in Lake Otway one night and never came back. Now the lake is dying, the victim of drought, intense heat, and thirst-crazed animals. On one of the lake's lonely outposts, five men and two women watch as the water level drops, wondering what it might reveal of Gillen's body--and his missing money. And waiting with them is Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, who, posing as Bony the horsebraker, has set out to quietly investigate Gillen's death but has found himself drawn into a human drama as powerful as the natural one being played out before him.
