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review 2023-02-13 05:33
FRENCH TART by Sloane Taylor
French Tart - Sloane Taylor Doni is in France to be trained by a Michelin starred chef. Sebastian is undercover keeping an eye on Doni. Doni knows something is up with Sebastian because he does not seem to know anything about cooking. They are attracted to each other but trying to stay apart. When they clean up the school's kitchen, they get much closer. Will it work out? What happens when Doni learns Sebastian's secret? I enjoyed this story. It was fun, especially Pierre. There was a lot of jumping to conclusions. When the conclusions are discovered to be wrong then Doni and Sebastian as well as others can start straightening out their lives. I look forward to reading more of this series.
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review 2023-02-13 05:33
FRENCH TART by Sloane Taylor
French Tart - Sloane Taylor Doni is in France to be trained by a Michelin starred chef. Sebastian is undercover keeping an eye on Doni. Doni knows something is up with Sebastian because he does not seem to know anything about cooking. They are attracted to each other but trying to stay apart. When they clean up the school's kitchen, they get much closer. Will it work out? What happens when Doni learns Sebastian's secret? I enjoyed this story. It was fun, especially Pierre. There was a lot of jumping to conclusions. When the conclusions are discovered to be wrong then Doni and Sebastian as well as others can start straightening out their lives. I look forward to reading more of this series.
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review 2022-01-31 04:43
JUST PARDON MY FRENCH by Jinx Schwartz
Just Pardon My French (Hetta Coffey Series, Book 8) - Jinx Schwartz

Hetta, Jan, and Rhonda are in Paris when they are "pressed" into service to help create a diversion. Once they realize they are being left out of the circle as to why they are needed, they start their own investigation. They manage to figure out most of what is being kept from them. Then they manage to solve the case.

 

I have never read any of this series. I will have to rectify that omission. I was able to follow the story line, but I missed the inside jokes. Hetta and Jan are a hoot. I laughed so much when they started their snark. I liked what they used to get the information they needed. The secondary characters were good. I wish Jenks would have stayed longer with Hetta instead of jetting in and out. I figured out the mystery also, but like Hetta, there was one part I did not see coming. I would not get on Hetta's bad side. I enjoyed this very much and plan on reading more of Hetta and Company.

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review 2020-09-23 21:54
The Hundred Days, in detail
Waterloo: The Campaign of 1815: Volume I: From Elba to Ligny and Quatre Bras - John Hussey

There are few historical episodes as dramatic as the “Hundred Days” – the label given to Napoleon’s doomed attempt to reclaim the French throne and reestablish his empire. Having driven out the restored Bourbon monarchy of Louis XVIII, Napoleon faced off against the coalition of powers that had exiled him to the Mediterranean island of Elba less than a year before. Though Napoleon struck first and scored some initial victories, his defeat at the battle of Waterloo ended his last bid for power, and led to his imprisonment on the remote island of Saint Helena until his death nearly six years later.

 

It is an understatement to say that there is no shortage of books on the events of the Hundred Days and the battle of Waterloo, as authors began writing about it almost from the moment the guns stilled and have not let up since. Yet even when weighed against two centuries of accounts of the battle, John Hussey’s book stands out. The first of a two-volume work on the Hundred Days campaign, it is the product of meticulous scholarship and careful reassessment of every significance event and controversy involved. This is evident from the very first chapters, as Hussey looks at Europe’s long history with Napoleon and the events leading up to his decision to escape his exile – a decision born of a mix of boredom, ego, ambition, and frustration with the slights inflicted upon the former emperor by the Allied powers that had defeated him.

 

With a British officer resident on Elba to supervise him and a British warship patrolling the waters between Elba and France, Bonaparte’s decision was not without risk. His successful arrival in France, followed by his bold journey to Paris, though, defied the odds and achieved his goal. Yet Hussey describes the tenuousness of Napoleon’s hold on power, with many in France still exhausted from his reign and wary of what his return might bring. Aware of the post-exile divisions among the coalition, Napoleon hoped they might provide an opportunity to maintain his throne. Nevertheless, he prepared for war.

 

And war was coming. Hussey devotes considerable space to describing the coalition facing the returned emperor, with pride of place going to the commands led by Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher and Arthur Wellesley, the duke of Wellington. Hussey spends several chapters dealing their commands, their operations, and their activities, with intelligence operations featured prominently. This is central to his efforts to unpack the events of Napoleon’s 1815 campaign and establish clear chronologies and understandings of what the commanders knew and when they learned it. The issues can often seem trivial, but they serve a clear purpose in serving as the basis for Hussey’s analysis of why decisions were undertaken, and why alternatives were not pursued.

 

Hussey ends the volume with an account of the battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras on 16 July. Though he details the actions separately, he makes it clear that they need to be regarded as a whole. His explanation is of a piece with the rest of the book, in which Hussey lays out the facts and explains how he reached the conclusions he did. It’s a careful work of often painstaking construction, and is what makes the book such a valuable addition to the already substantial library of works on the events of 1815. Take together with its successor volume, it’s a book that serves as an indispensable history of the battle, one that no serious student of the subject can afford to ignore.

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review 2020-06-13 16:58
Jean-François Parot - L'énigme des Blancs-Manteaux
L'énigme des Blancs-Manteaux - Jean-François Parot

So, I've had two extremely busy weeks, but the time it took me to finish this book was still too much. But finally I made it (hooray for weekends).

 

As for the book itself, after a very slow start (as you might have already guessed from my previous posts) the book found its footing and a good pace, and it became a thoroughly enjoyable historical mystery, if just a bit more violent than I would have expected.

 

One thing that at times pulled me out of the reading is that the author has clearly done a lot of research on the history and many more aspects of the period he's writing about (as the impressive amount of notes peppered throughout the book), and he wants to show off his knowledge; for me at times it was interesting and other distracting, though admittedly it depeneded on whether I cared for the argument he was talking about.

 

This is a series I'm genuinely curious to read more of, if only to see if the issues with the writing were a one off, or if the different pacing and style were intentional and the author was building up to something else.

 

Still, whenever I was able to sit down and enjoy the book for more than an hour at the times, I had lots of fun. And kudos to themis-athena for providing incredible visual references to help get into the story.

 

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