The superb historian and biographer Antonia Fraser, author of Marie Antoinette, casts new light on the splendor and the scandals of the reign of Louis XIV in this dramatic, illuminating look at the women in his life. The self-proclaimed Sun King, Louis XIV, ruled over the most glorious and extravagant court in 17th-century Europe. Now, Antonia Fraser goes behind the well-known tales of Louis' accomplishments and follies, exploring in riveting detail his intimate relationships with women.
Added by: KundAlini | Karma: 1594.10 | Fiction literature | 19 October 2014
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In this new epic of imagination, time travel, and adventure, Diana Gabaldon continues the riveting story begun in Outlander.
Jamie Fraser is an eighteenth-century Highlander, an ex-Jacobite traitor, and a reluctant rebel in the American Revolution. His wife, Claire Randall Fraser, is a surgeon—from the twentieth century. What she knows of the future compels him to fight. What she doesn’t know may kill them both.
Poirot was present when Jane bragged of her plan to "get rid of" her estranged husband. Now the monstrous man is dead. And yet the great Belgian detective can't help feeling that he is being taken for a ride - how can she have stabbed him to death at the same time she was seen dining with friends?
Among the towering red cliffs of Petra, like some monstrous swollen Buddha, sat the corpse of Mrs Boynton. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist was the only sign of the fatal injection that had killed her. With only 24 hours available to solve the mystery, Hercule Poirot recalled a chance remark he'd overheard back in Jerusalem: 'You see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?' Mrs Boynton was, indeed, the most detestable woman he'd ever met...
The Wives of Henry VIII is a wonderful account of the lives of the six women who married the controversial Tudor king. Antonia Fraser has written extensively on many subjects, but is particularly interested in British royal history. Her writing is clear and accessible, and almost invariably interesting.
Fraser says 'the six women have become defined in a popular sense not so much by their lives as by the way these lives ended.' Largely, they became identified as stereotypes. Fraser's stated intent in the book is to examine the real women behind the stereotypes, to find the human strengths and frailties behind the historic labels.