Wednesday 30 April 2014

The Greenland Breach by Bernard Besson: Review & Giveaway




Review
When any new land is discovered, there is always a scramble for who gets control over the place. The rare metals, oil and gas underneath dazzle us with their brilliance so do the chance for a viable human settlement, it could be on Moon or even Greenland. Greenland is not a new land, but with the climate change it could be the answer to all humanities problem. In 'The Greenland Breach' by Bernard Besson, as a young Independent nation Greenland has to deal with the American, Canadian, French, Norwegian, Danish and Chinese companies and governments that wants access to its rare earths and secrets. Its not just with these scavengers they have to deal with, but also with Global Warming, which is no longer a thing of distant future but a very happening present, that is melting away their Great Island.

The book starts with a huge tidal wave that starts in Greenland with the breaking away of a great mass of land that is moving towards the coast of United States. Fermatown, a French Security company run by an ex-agent, John Spencer Lariviere, his wife Victoire, along with Luc, a hacker with killer edge technology in their hands, is contacted to provide security to the heiress of North Land, a scientific and excavating company with stakes in Greenland. The Trio get involved in events that impact the world. Terre Noire, a rival for North Land in Greenland, is holding immense secretive knowledge about Earth core that could change the very course of our life on Earth. Somebody is out to kill John. Who wants to kill John? Is it connected with what is happening in Greenland? Why would such big stakeholders in such a 'climate' be interested in a minuscule agency like Frematown?

There is intrigue, conspiracy, assassins, killer blondes, catastrophe, a world-wide disaster, the kind of things that you find in a Michael Crichton book, that would hook me to a book. The kind of things that would hold my attention from beginning to end, the kind of things that would make me read a book in a sitting or two. Unfortunately, I found myself drifting away every few pages in the first two thirds of the book. I couldn't help wondering if something is lost in translation.There were things that held my interest like the Captain of Bouc-Bel-Air who seems to be inspired by Jules Verne's Captain Nemo, to history of Greenland and incorporating Inuit mythology into the story. It was the last one third that did really hold my attention with John's visit to Great Wound of the Wild Dog and Luc's visit to the Terre Noire, with all the twists and turns, and surprises that made the book worth reading.

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SYNOPSIS

A stylish, fast-paced spy thriller about the intrigue, economic warfare and struggles for natural resources promised by global warming. The Arctic ice caps are breaking up. Europe and the East Coast of the Unites States brace for a tidal wave. Meanwhile, former French intelligence officer John Spencer Larivière, his karate-trained, steamy Eurasian partner, Victoire, and their bisexual computer-genius sidekick, Luc, pick up an ordinary freelance assignment that quickly leads them into the glacial silence of the great north, where a merciless war is being waged for control of discoveries that will change the future of humanity.
A plausible vision of climate catastrophe combines with French freelance spies and Bond-like action forming a gripping page-turner of a thriller.[provided by the publisher]
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E-Release date: October 30, 2013
Print release: April 30, 2014
from Le French Book
113,000 words/285 pages
Author’s page | Goodreads
Buying Links

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AUTHOR AND TRANSLATOR

Award-winning thriller writer Bernard Besson, who was born in Lyon, France, in 1949, is a former top-level chief of staff of the French intelligence services, an eminent specialist in economic intelligence and Honorary General Controller of the French National Police. He was involved in dismantling Soviet spy rings in France and Western Europe when the USSR fell and has real inside knowledge from his work auditing intelligence services and the police. He has also written a number of prize-winning thrillers and several works of nonfiction. He currently lives in the fourteenth arrondissement of Paris, right down the street from his heroes.

Julie Rose is a prize-winning, world-renowned translator of major French thinkers, known for, among other works, her acclaimed translation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, which was published by Random House in 2008. She has translated twenty-eight books, including many French classics, and writes on the side. She lives in her hometown of Sydney, Australia, with her husband, dog and two cats.

Website | Facebook | Twitter @LeFrenchBook




Disclaimer: I received an ebook from the France Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated for this review and all opinions are my own. Giveaway is sponsored by France Book Tours.

Wednesday 9 April 2014

Nightmare in Burgundy: Review and Giveaway

Every place has its own share of myths and mysteries associated with it. Some when investigated provide a reasonable explanation, others cannot be explained logically and will remain a mystery until an explanation reasonable or otherwise is found. Like myths and mysteries, each places has its own traditions. Some very mundane that has no appeal to us. Some so quirky that we go 'what?'. Do you know that Wines are Exorcised? No, not in some distant past but even in the present. I understand that after having a little too much to drink a person may need some exorcising of the inner demons that are let loose, but exorcising Wine, never heard of. But then, what do I know about wines!

This is the third book in the Winemaker Detective Series set in the winemaking rural regions of France. Another very short cozy mystery that can be read in a hour or two. Benjamin Cooker visits Burgundy region where he is celebrated with the Chevalier award. Cooker takes us to wine tasting session and gives us a lesson on how to go about one if we were ever inclined to do one. He tells us the difference not only between the wines of the Loire valley and those of the Burgundy region, but also of the nature and 'terroir' of both. He is as usual accompanied by his handsome and heartbreaking assistant Virgile. In all this leisurely tour of Burgundy, Cooker gets interested in a mystery, and does some Sleuthing but again the mystery gets solved on its own by coincidences.

Cooker is baffled by the mystery of the writing on the wall in various places in Burgundy. What is mysterious about the writing on the wall? Writing on the wall is just graffiti. But who goes about writing graffiti in Latin, in Verses, about vengeance all over the walls in Burgundy. Graffiti is just the beginning, there are other mysterious happening that follow. Is there a logical explanation to all the mysterious happenings, or is the devil really let loose in Burgundy? Escape into Burgundy!

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SYNOPSIS

The Winemaker Detective leaves his native Bordeaux to go to Burgundy for a dream wine-tasting trip to France’s other key wine-making region. Between Beaune, Dijon and Nuits-Saint-Georges, it turns into a troubling nightmare when he stumbles upon a mystery revolving around messages from another era. What do they mean? What dark secrets from the deep past are haunting the Clos de Vougeot? Does blood need to spill to sharpen people’s memory? [provided by the publisher]
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

©David Nakache 
Jean-Pierre Alaux is a magazine, radio and television journalist when he is not writing novels in southwestern France. He is a genuine wine and food lover and recently won the Antonin Carême prize for his cookbook La Truffe sur le Soufflé, which he wrote with the chef Alexis Pélissou. He is the grandson of a winemaker and exhibits a real passion for wine and winemaking. For him, there is no greater common denominator than wine. He gets a sparkle in his eye when he talks about the Winemaker Detective series, which he coauthors with Noël Balen. Noël lives in Paris, where he shares his time between writing, making records, and lecturing on music. He plays bass, is a music critic and has authored a number of books about musicians in addition to his novel and short-story writing.

 ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Translator Sally Pane studied French at State University of New York Oswego and the Sorbonne before receiving her Masters Degree in French Literature from the University of Colorado where she wrote Camus and the Americas: A Thematic Analysis of Three Works Based on His Journaux de Voyage.  Her career includes more than twenty years of translating and teaching French and Italian at Berlitz and at Colorado University Boulder.  She has worked in scientific, legal and literary translation; her literary translations include Operatic Arias; Singers Edition, and Reality and the Untheorizable by Clément Rosset.  She also served as the interpreter for the government cabinet of Rwanda and translated for Dian Fossey’s Digit Fund. In addition to her passion for French, she has studied Italian at Colorado University, in Rome and in Siena.  She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband.
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Disclaimer: I received an ebook from the France Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated for this review and all opinions are my own. Giveaway is sponsored by France Book Tours.

Sunday 6 April 2014

The Collector of Dying Breaths by M J Rose




Jellyfish has cheated death. Man is still in constant search to live forever. We do hear news that the person to live forever is already born. Sometimes the thought that one could live forever could be frightening, and what are we going to do with these long lives.

If soul were the essence of the body, and the soul can live forever taking different lives and by capturing this essence in one's last breath, can we relive the glorious moments of our various lives? If that were possible, it would be better than immortality, right? Instead of living one long boring life, one could have various lives in various times and remember them all. It is the rich and mighty who want to live forever or enjoy the moments of various lives, the poor are content with living for the moment. It happened in the faraway past and it still happens now. In the Sixteenth century France, Queen Mother Catherine de Medici's perfumer Rene Bianco had been collecting dying breaths and researching a method to reanimate the soul in another. In the present, Melinoe Cypros has all the wealth in the world to enjoy immortality and persuades recently bereaved Jac to continue the work of her dead brother Robbie to find the essence to reanimate the soul with the help of Bianco's notes. Will she find it? Is it worth the effort?

The story moves between past and present, about why Bianco had to create the Elixir to reanimate souls and Jac's efforts to recreate the Elixir. Interesting twist in creating Elixir for Jac is how is she going to find the ingredients the Elixir calls for in its true state. Remember pollution and natural changes in things over centuries, so how will she recreate it? We get a glimpse of the political intrigue in Catherine de Medici's palace and the role of a perfumer in the Queen's Entourage. More than a mystery, this is essentially a love story, about a love and passion a man has for a woman centuries ago, and love another woman keeps running from in the present. Of love that could destroy and the obsession to live forever. A gripping story of immortal love and love for immortality!

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SYNOPSIS
From one of America’s most imaginative storytellers comes a passionate tale of love and treachery, spanning the days of Catherine de Medici’s court to the twenty-first century and starring a woman drawn back, time and again, to the past.

In 1533, an Italian orphan with an uncanny knack for creating fragrance is plucked from poverty to become Catherine de Medici’s perfumer. To repay his debt, over the years René le Florentine is occasionally called upon to put his vast knowledge to a darker purpose: the creation of deadly poisons used to dispatch the Queen’s rivals.

But it’s René’s other passion—a desire to reanimate a human breath, to bring back the lives of the two people whose deaths have devastated him—that incites a dangerous treasure hunt five centuries later. That’s when Jac L’Etoile—suffering from a heartache of her own—becomes obsessed with the possibility of unlocking Rene’s secret to immortality.

Soon Jac’s search reconnects her with Griffin North, a man she’s loved her entire life. Together they confront an eccentric heiress whose art collection rivals many museums and who is determined to keep her treasures close at hand, not just in this life but in her next.

Set in the forest of Fontainebleau, crisscrossing the lines between the past and the present, M.J. Rose has written a mesmerizing tale of passion and obsession. This is a gothic tale perfect for fans of Anne Rice, Deborah Harkness, and Diana Galbadon. [from the publisher]

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Author Bio

M.J. Rose, is the international bestselling author of 13 novels;Lip Service, In Fidelity,Flesh Tones, Sheet Music, Lying in Bed, The Halo Effect, The Delilah Complex, The Venus Fix,The Reincarnationist, The Memorist, The Hypnotist, The Book of Lost Fragrances, and Seduction.
Rose is also the co-author with Angela Adair Hoy of How to Publish and Promote Online and with Randy Susan Meyers of What to Do Before Your Book Lauch.

She is a founding member and board member of International Thriller Writers and the founder of the first marketing company for authors: AuthorBuzz.com. She runs the popular blog; Buzz, Balls & Hype.

Getting published has been an adventure for Rose who self-published Lip Service late in 1998 after several traditional publishers turned it down. Editors had loved it, but didn’t know how to position it or market it since it didn’t fit into any one genre.

Frustrated, but curious and convinced that there was a readership for her work, she set up a web site where readers could download her book for $9.95 and began to seriously market the novel on the Internet.

After selling over 2500 copies (in both electronic and trade paper format) Lip Servicebecame the first e-book and the first self-published novel chosen by the LiteraryGuild/Doubleday Book Club as well as being the first e-book to go on to be published by a mainstream New York publishing house.

Rose has been profiled in Time magazine, Forbes, The New York Times, Business 2.0, Working Woman, Newsweek and New York Magazine.

Rose has appeared on The Today Show, Fox News, The Jim Lehrer NewsHour, and features on her have appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and abroad, including USAToday, Stern, L’Official, Poets and Writers and Publishers Weekly.

Rose graduated from Syracuse University and spent the ’80s in advertising. She was the Creative Director of Rosenfeld Sirowitz and Lawson and she has a commercial in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

She lives in Connecticut with Doug Scofield, a composer, and their very spoiled dog, Winka. [from her website]

Disclaimer: I received an ebook from the France Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated for this review and all opinions are my own. 

Saturday 5 April 2014

Grand Cru Heist: Review and Giveaway


Benjamin Cooker is a wine critic, probably a dream profession for many. Imagine spending everyday of your life tasting all those vintage wines and writing notes on them. If that sounds less appealing, he also gets to play amateur detective giving helpful pointers to the police to solve crimes.

In the second instalment of the Winemaker Detective series, Cooker gets mugged and his car is stolen. His precious notebook with notes on vintage wines is also lost with the car. A woman is murdered and a man allegedly commits suicide in the place where Cooker goes to convalesce after the mugging. Cases of Vintage wine from a small vineyard are stolen and cryptic messages left for the vintner.

Drink had often been blamed for many a crime. Given the number of crimes committed for the Grand Cru you know it is not wrongly blamed.

This is a short cozy novel. Cooker spends his time smoking Havana cigars, drinking vintage wines, entertaining people with his special collection of wines and the crimes get solved on its own, though Benjamin prides on solving them. This book has the same feel as the first one, Treachery in Bordeaux, with a leisurely pace and a small dose of wit and wisdom. I would have liked it better if there were less coincidences and Cooker really does some sleuthing. When the real world is hectic with all that running around it is nice to escape into a holiday with vintage wines.


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SYNOPSIS


After Treachery in Bordeauxhere is another Epicurean whodunit in French wine country. Immerse yourself in French countryside and gourmet attitude with our wine-loving amateur sleuths. This time they gumshoe around the Loire Valley before heading back to Bordeaux.

One winter day in Paris, renowned wine critic Benjamin Cooker’s world gets turned upside down when his car gets highjacked. He loses his treasured tasting notebook and his feeling of safety. To recover, he retreats to the region around Tours, sure that the wine and off-season calm will restore is sense of self. There a flamboyant British dandy, a spectacular blue-eyed blond, a zealous concierge and touchy local police disturb his well-deserved rest. From the Loire Valley to Bordeaux, in between a glass of Vouvray and a bottle of Saint-Émilion, the Winemaker Detective and his assistant Virgile turn PI to solve two murders and very peculiar heist. Who stole those bottles of grand cru classé? Take this Epicurean journey through France to solve the whodunit. [provided by the publisher]
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E-Release date: Jan 30, 2014 by Le French Book
150 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1939474087

p-releaseJune 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-1939474049
Author’s website | Goodreads
Buying Links:
Kindle link: http://amzn.to/1ctJ8Jm

ABOUT THE AUTHORS



©David Nakache 
Jean-Pierre Alaux is a magazine, radio and television journalist when he is not writing novels in southwestern France. He is a genuine wine and food lover and recently won the Antonin Carême prize for his cookbook La Truffe sur le Soufflé, which he wrote with the chef Alexis Pélissou. He is the grandson of a winemaker and exhibits a real passion for wine and winemaking. For him, there is no greater common denominator than wine. He gets a sparkle in his eye when he talks about the Winemaker Detective series, which he coauthors with Noël Balen. Noël lives in Paris, where he shares his time between writing, making records, and lecturing on music. He plays bass, is a music critic and has authored a number of books about musicians in addition to his novel and short-story writing.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

The translator, Anne Trager loves France so much she has lived there for over a half a century and just can’t seem to leave. What keeps her there is a uniquely French mix of pleasure seeking and creativity. Well, that and the wine. In 2011, she woke up one morning and said, “I just can’t stand it anymore. There are way too many good books being written in France not reaching a broader audience.” That’s when she founded Le French Book to translate some of those books into English. The company’s motto is “If we love it, we translate it,” and Anne loves crime fiction, mysteries and detective novels.
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Disclaimer: I received an ebook from the France Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated for this review and all opinions are my own. Giveaway is sponsored by France Book Tours.