The Madwomen of Paris

The Madwomen of Paris PDF Author: Jennifer Cody Epstein
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0593158024
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
EDGAR AWARD FINALIST • “Epstein’s page-turning historical novel—an indictment of the medical establishment’s manipulation of women—remains eerily relevant and timely.”—Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Spectacular Two women fall under the influence of a powerful doctor in Paris’s notorious nineteenth-century women’s asylum—a gripping novel inspired by true events, from the bestselling author of Wunderland. After being dragged into the Salpêtrière asylum screaming, covered in blood, and suffering from amnesia, Josephine is diagnosed with what the nineteenth-century Parisian press has dubbed “the epidemic of the age”: hysteria. It’s a disease so uniquely baffling that Jean-Martin Charcot, the Salpêtrière’s acclaimed director, devotes popular lectures to it, using hypnosis to elicit fits and fantastical symptoms in front of rapt audiences. Young, charismatic, and highly susceptible to this entrancement, Josephine quickly becomes a favorite of the powerful doctor and the Parisian public alike. But her true ally at the Salpêtrière is Laure, a lonely ward attendant. As their friendship blossoms into something more, the two women find comfort and even joy together despite their bleak surroundings. Soon, Josephine’s memory returns, and with it images of a gruesome crime she’s convinced she’s committed. Ensnared in Charcot’s hypnotic web, she starts spiraling into seeming insanity, prompting a terrified Laure to plot their escape together. First, though, Laure must solve a grim mystery: Who, really, is the girl she’s grown to love? Is Josephine a madwoman . . . or a murderer? Inspired by true events, expertly researched, and masterfully written, The Madwomen of Paris is a Gothic saga for the ages with themes that remain hauntingly resonant today.

The Madwomen of Paris

The Madwomen of Paris PDF Author: Jennifer Cody Epstein
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0593158024
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
EDGAR AWARD FINALIST • “Epstein’s page-turning historical novel—an indictment of the medical establishment’s manipulation of women—remains eerily relevant and timely.”—Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Spectacular Two women fall under the influence of a powerful doctor in Paris’s notorious nineteenth-century women’s asylum—a gripping novel inspired by true events, from the bestselling author of Wunderland. After being dragged into the Salpêtrière asylum screaming, covered in blood, and suffering from amnesia, Josephine is diagnosed with what the nineteenth-century Parisian press has dubbed “the epidemic of the age”: hysteria. It’s a disease so uniquely baffling that Jean-Martin Charcot, the Salpêtrière’s acclaimed director, devotes popular lectures to it, using hypnosis to elicit fits and fantastical symptoms in front of rapt audiences. Young, charismatic, and highly susceptible to this entrancement, Josephine quickly becomes a favorite of the powerful doctor and the Parisian public alike. But her true ally at the Salpêtrière is Laure, a lonely ward attendant. As their friendship blossoms into something more, the two women find comfort and even joy together despite their bleak surroundings. Soon, Josephine’s memory returns, and with it images of a gruesome crime she’s convinced she’s committed. Ensnared in Charcot’s hypnotic web, she starts spiraling into seeming insanity, prompting a terrified Laure to plot their escape together. First, though, Laure must solve a grim mystery: Who, really, is the girl she’s grown to love? Is Josephine a madwoman . . . or a murderer? Inspired by true events, expertly researched, and masterfully written, The Madwomen of Paris is a Gothic saga for the ages with themes that remain hauntingly resonant today.

The Mad Women's Ball

The Mad Women's Ball PDF Author: Victoria Mas
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1647004454
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
A New York Times best historical novel of the year, adapted as a major film for Amazon Prime, this feminist literary thriller is set in Paris's infamous Salpêtrière asylum—now in paperback The Salpêtrière Asylum: Paris, 1885. Dr. Charcot holds all of Paris in thrall with his displays of hypnotism on women who have been deemed mad and cast out from society. But the truth is much more complicated—these women are often simply inconvenient, unwanted wives, those who have lost something precious, wayward daughters, or girls born from adulterous relationships. For Parisian society, the highlight of the year is the Lenten ball—the Mad Women’s Ball—when the great and good come to gawk at the patients of the Salpêtrière dressed up in their finery for one night only. For the women themselves, it is a rare moment of hope. Genevieve is a senior nurse. After the childhood death of her sister Blandine, she shunned religion and placed her faith in both the celebrated psychiatrist Dr. Charcot and science. But everything begins to change when she meets Eugénie, the 19-year-old daughter of a bourgeois family that has locked her away in the asylum. Because Eugénie has a secret: she sees spirits. Inspired by the scandalous, banned work that all of Paris is talking about, The Book of Spirits, Eugénie is determined to escape from the asylum—and the bonds of her gender—and seek out those who will believe in her. And for that she will need Genevieve's help . . .

Wunderland

Wunderland PDF Author: Jennifer Cody Epstein
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
ISBN: 0525576908
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
"East Village, 1989 Things had never been easy between Ava Fisher and her estranged mother Ilse. Too many questions hovered between them: Who was Ava's father? Where had Ilse been during the war? Why had she left her only child in a German orphanage during the war's final months? But now Ilse's ashes have arrived from Germany, and with them, a trove of unsent letters addressed to someone else unknown to Ava: Renate Bauer, a childhood friend. As her mother's letters unfurl a dark past, Ava spirals deep into the shocking history of a woman she never truly knew. Berlin, 1933 As the Nazi party tightens its grip on the city, Ilse and Renate find their friendship under siege--and Ilse's increasing involvement in the Hitler Youth movement leaves them on opposing sides of the gathering storm. Then the Nuremburg Laws force Renate to confront a long-buried past, and a catastrophic betrayal is set in motion... An unflinching exploration of Nazi Germany and its legacy, Wunderland is a at once a powerful portrait of an unspeakable crime history and a page-turning contemplation of womanhood, wartime, and just how far we might go in order to belong."--

Haunting Paris

Haunting Paris PDF Author: Mamta Chaudhry
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0525565388
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Paris, 1989: Alone in her luminous apartment on Île Saint-Louis, Sylvie discovers a mysterious letter among her late lover Julien’s possessions, launching her into a decades-old search for a child who vanished in the turbulence of the Second World War. She is unaware that she is watched over by Julien’s ghost, his love for her powerful enough to draw him back to this world, though doomed now to remain a silent observer. Sylvie’s quest leads her deep into the secrets of Julien’s past, shedding new light on the dark days of Nazi-occupied Paris. A timeless story of love and loss, Haunting Paris matches emotional intensity with lyrical storytelling to explore grief, family secrets, and the undeniable power of memory.

Girl in the Afternoon

Girl in the Afternoon PDF Author: Serena Burdick
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250106680
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
"A tale brimming over with secrets, betrayals and redemption. Burdick keeps readers riveted." -RT Book Reviews (4 Stars HOT) "Moving, surprising, and thought-provoking." -The Emerald City Book Review "Burdick brings the sights and sounds of the Paris of the Impressionists to life." -Historical Novel Society “A provocative tale of family secrets, betrayal, and the renewal of self-discovery.” -Heather Webb, author of Rodin's Lover "Girl in the Afternoon is a love story, a mystery, a tragedy, and a moving study of the human capacity to contain both reckless error and surprising redemption.” -Carrie Brown, author of The Stargazer's Sister Born into a wealthy Parisian family at the center of Belle Epoque society, 18-year-old Aimée Savaray dreams of becoming a respected painter in the male-dominated art world; and secretly, she also dreams of being loved by Henri, the boy her parents took in as a child and raised alongside her. But when Henri inexplicably disappears, in the midst of the Franco-Prussian war, the Savarays’ privileged lives begin to unravel. Heartbroken, Aimée tries to find him, but Henri doesn’t want to be found—and only one member of the family knows why. As Aimée seeks refuge in the art world, mentored by the Impressionist Édouard Manet, she unwittingly finds her way back to Henri. With so many years gone by and secrets buried, their eventual reunion unmasks the lies that once held the family together, but now threaten to tear them apart. A rich and opulent saga, Girl in the Afternoon brings the Impressionists to life in this portrait of scandal, fortune, and unrequited love.

Paris Twilight

Paris Twilight PDF Author: Russ Rymer
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0544003071
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
A novel that “elegantly weaves together many strands—the political, the historical, and the romantic, richly braided with adventure” (Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs). Paris, 1990. While demonstrations against the First Gulf War rage, Matilde Anselm, professor of cardiac anesthesiology, arrives in the City of Light from New York to be part of the surgical team performing a heart transplant—and soon finds herself falling in love with a suave Arab diplomat. Even as her concerns mount over shadowy protocols surrounding the planned transplant, a surprise inheritance—a mysterious apartment and trove of love letters from the Spanish Civil War, bequeathed to her by a stranger—sweeps Matilde through a hidden Paris and into the labyrinth of her own buried past. As the diplomat and the apartment reluctantly reveal their secrets, the tragedies they unearth open a further mystery: the enigma that has haunted Matilde’s life. A dizzying tale of personal transformation, Russ Rymer’s “richly plotted, ardently imagined first novel” is populated by “unforgettable characters [who] grapple with the mystery of what love means, and what it costs” (Geraldine Brooks, author of People of the Book). “Russ Rymer is a virtuoso of mystery and misapprehension. With Paris Twilight, he has created a novel of fine intelligence that richly rewards the reader’s closest attention. An American original.” —Ward Just, author of An Unfinished Season and Exiles in the Garden

The Paris Winter

The Paris Winter PDF Author: Imogen Robertson
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466872314
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
There is but one Paris. Vincent Van Gogh Maud Heighton came to Lafond's famous Academie to paint, and to flee the constraints of her small English town. It took all her courage to escape, but Paris, she quickly realizes, is no place for a light purse. While her fellow students enjoy the dazzling decadence of the Belle Epoque, Maud slips into poverty. Quietly starving, and dreading another cold Paris winter, she stumbles upon an opportunity when Christian Morel engages her as a live-in companion to his beautiful young sister, Sylvie. Maud is overjoyed by her good fortune. With a clean room, hot meals, and an umbrella to keep her dry, she is able to hold her head high as she strolls the streets of Montmartre. No longer hostage to poverty and hunger, Maud can at last devote herself to her art. But all is not as it seems. Christian and Sylvie, Maud soon discovers, are not quite the darlings they pretend to be. Sylvie has a secret addiction to opium and Christian has an ominous air of intrigue. As this dark and powerful tale progresses, Maud is drawn further into the Morels' world of elegant deception. Their secrets become hers, and soon she is caught in a scheme of betrayal and revenge that will plunge her into the darkness that waits beneath this glittering city of light.

The Gods of Heavenly Punishment

The Gods of Heavenly Punishment PDF Author: Jennifer Cody Epstein
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039307157X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
A young woman's journey through the 1945 firebombing of Tokyo, and the stories of three Americans who shape her fate.

While Paris Slept

While Paris Slept PDF Author: Ruth Druart
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1538735172
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
One woman must make the hardest decision of her life in this unforgettably moving story of resistance and faith during one of the darkest times in history. Santa Cruz, 1953. Jean-Luc is a man on the run from his past. The scar on his face is a small price to pay for surviving the horrors of Nazi occupation in France. Now, he has a new life in California, a family. He never expected the past to come knocking on his door. Paris, 1944. A young Jewish woman's past is torn apart in a heartbeat. Herded onto a train bound for Auschwitz, in an act of desperation she entrusts her most precious possession to a stranger. All she has left now is hope. On a darkened platform, two destinies become intertwined, and the choices each person makes will change the future in ways neither could have imagined. Told from alternating perspectives, While Paris Slept reflects on the power of love, resilience, and courage when all seems lost. Exploring the strength of family ties, and what it really means to love someone unconditionally, this debut novel will capture your heart. Includes a Reading Group Guide.

A Paris Apartment

A Paris Apartment PDF Author: Michelle Gable
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1466849622
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
The New York Times Best Seller! Now with an excerpt of Michelle's new book, I'll See You in Paris! Bienvenue à Paris! When April Vogt's boss tells her about an apartment in the ninth arrondissement that has been discovered after being shuttered for the past seventy years, the Sotheby's continental furniture specialist does not hear the words "dust" or "rats" or "decrepit." She hears Paris. She hears escape. Once in France, April quickly learns the apartment is not merely some rich hoarder's repository. Beneath the cobwebs and stale perfumed air is a goldmine, and not because of the actual gold (or painted ostrich eggs or mounted rhinoceros horns or bronze bathtub). First, there's a portrait by one of the masters of the Belle Epoque, Giovanni Boldini. And then there are letters and journals written by the very woman in the painting, Marthe de Florian. These documents reveal that she was more than a renowned courtesan with enviable decolletage. Suddenly April's quest is no longer about the bureaux plats and Louis-style armchairs that will fetch millions at auction. It's about discovering the story behind this charismatic woman. It's about discovering two women, actually. With the help of a salty (and annoyingly sexy) Parisian solicitor and the courtesan's private diaries, April tries to uncover the many secrets buried in the apartment. As she digs into Marthe's life, April can't help but take a deeper look into her own. Having left behind in the States a cheating husband, a family crisis about to erupt, and a career she's been using as the crutch to simply get by, she feels compelled to sort out her own life too. When the things she left bubbling back home begin to boil over, and Parisian delicacies beyond flaky pâtisseries tempt her better judgment, April knows that both she and Marthe deserve happy finales. Whether accompanied by croissants or champagne, this delectable debut novel depicts the Paris of the Belle Epoque and the present day with vibrant and stunning allure. Based on historical events, Michelle Gable's A Paris Apartment will entertain and inspire, as readers embrace the struggles and successes of two very unforgettable women.