Bøger af Letha Hadady

Hungarians have always fought for freedom. In 896 they swept down from the Siberian plain, when Árpád led ancient Magyars from the Carpathian Basin across the Eastern European steppe, mixing with indigenous tribes. The Magyars brought their love of spicy food, gypsy music, poetry and freedom. Hungarians have been conquered by Mongols, Turks, Austrians, Nazis and Soviets. Their love of freedom persisted. The dual monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Central Europe, between 1867 and 1918, ruled Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Poland, Romania, Italy, Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia and Montenegro. After the world wars and the failed peoples' revolution in 1956, Hungary was fractured, scattering Hungarians like raisins in a cake.Eva Barthold is an American writer born in 1959 in the Bronx to parents who had escaped Budapest after the October '56 revolution. In the summer of 1989, she accepts a writing assignment that sends her to Budapest "the jewel in the Danube." Budapest is celebrating a moment of triumph when a border guard at Sopron opened the gate allowing East Germans to cross to the West. Hungarians punched a hole in the Iron Curtain.Eva is ghost writing a book about a Hungarian woman who started a cosmetic company in New York that features a secret ingredient for youthful beauty. While researching the book, Eva uncovers her connection with a sixteenth century noblewoman known as "the blood countess" who lived in the same area where her father was born. Eva, who grew up in New York, hopes to discover what it is about herself that is Hungarian. In Budapest, her life is threatened, she becomes entangled in political intrigue when she falls in love with a young Hungarian student political reformer. Eva's family has noble Hungarian roots: Little does she know how bloody.

The Serpent's Kissby Michael FosterThe Serpent's Kiss is the enthralling power struggle of love and war set during Colonial times, the most crucial and colorful period of the American pageant. The exploration, conflicts, and cultures of the French and Indian War (1754 - 63) invented America, a new country more ethnically diverse and open to opportunity than anything the world had seen. Our birth has shaped our institutions and collective emotions to this day. The Serpent's Kiss, classically written and carefully researched, is brimming with sensuality featuring the roles actually played by women, Indians, blacks, Irish soldiers, German farmers, Jewish merchants, religious sects, and personalities such as George Washington, Ben Franklin, Major General Edward Braddock, Commander of British armies in North America, Shingas, Teedyuscung and Daniel Boone. The love/hate relationship between the British, French, and Indians, bear a striking resemblance to our time. Bloody wilderness warfare, Evangelical revival, savage sexuality, and gracious homes and manners all went hand in hand. Life was often short but thrilling at a time when epidemic disease was rampant and torture and terror acceptable means of conquest.Robin Sayer, the bright, pampered son of a famous actress, is saved from the gallows by Joanna Dove, a darkly beautiful, charismatic preacher of "the end of days" and our story's main woman character. Joanna, part-Indian, with flowing dark hair, a temptress with golden eyes, is based on an actual women preacher of the 18th century. The historic revival that she embodies-- the so-called Great Awakening-- alarmingly anticipates the fundamentalism rising in America today. Like certain of our contemporary preachers, politicians, and media giants, Joanna's apocalyptic vision gets tangled with her simmering sexuality.