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The lost carousel of Provence / by Blackwell, Juliet,author.;
"An artist lost to history, a family abandoned to its secrets, and the woman whose search for meaning unearths it all. American photographer Cady Drake shoots local merry-go-rounds, a hobby inspired by a carved wooden rabbit gifted to her following her troubled years in foster care. Now at a crisis point in her life, Cady can't refuse a freelance assignment documenting the antique carousels of Paris. While there, she hopes to track down the true origins of her rabbit, which she has always believed to be carved by French carousel maker Gustave Bayol. Cady's research leads her to Provence, where she discovers a dilapidated carousel carved by Bayol for the grand Château Clement in the early 1900s. After commissioning the carousel, the Clement family struggled to maintain their ancestral home through the two World Wars, buffeted by jealousies passed down through the generations. Despite the carousel's derelict state, Cady longs to restore it -- if she can secure the permission of the run-down château's gruff, elderly owner, a man with secrets of his own. As Cady digs deeper into the past, unearthing century-old photographs of the Clement carousel and its creators, she might be the one person who can bring the past to light and reunite a family torn apart"--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Women photographers; Family secrets; Merry-go-round art; Americans;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Off the wild coast of Brittany / by Blackwell, Juliet,author.;
"An unforgettable story of resilience and resistance set during WWII and present-day France on a secluded island off the coast of Brittany Natalie Morgen made a name for herself with a memoir about overcoming her harsh childhood after finding a new life in Paris. After falling in love with a classically trained chef, they moved together to his ancestral home, a tiny fishing village off the coast of Brittany. But then Francois-Xavier breaks things off with her without warning, leaving her flat broke and in the middle of renovating the guesthouse they planned to open for business. Natalie's already struggling when her sister, Alex, shows up unannounced. The sisters form an unlikely partnership to save the guesthouse, reluctantly admitting their secrets to each other as they begin to heal the scars of their shared past. But the property harbors hidden stories of its own. During World War II, every man of fighting age on the island fled to England to join the Free French forces. The women and children were left on their own ... until three hundred German troops took up residence, living side-by-side with the French women on the tiny island for the next several years. When Natalie and Alex unearth an old cookbook in a hidden cupboard, they find handwritten recipes that reveal old secrets. With the help of locals, the Morgen sisters begin to unravel the relationship between Violette, a young islander whose family ran the guesthouse during WWII, and Rainier, a German military customs official with a devastating secret of his own"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; World War, 1939-1945; Secrecy;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Paris showroom / by Blackwell, Juliet,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."In Nazi-occupied Paris, a talented artisan must fight for her life by designing for her enemies. From New York Times bestselling author Juliet Blackwell comes an extraordinary story about holding on to hope when all seems lost. Capucine Benoit works alongside her father to produce fans of rare feathers, beads, and intricate pleating for the haute couture fashion houses. But after the Germans invade Paris in June 1940, Capucine and her father must focus on mere survival-until they are betrayed to the secret police and arrested for his political beliefs. When Capucine saves herself from deportation to Auschwitz by highlighting her connections to Parisian design houses, she is sent to a little-known prison camp located in the heart of Paris, within the Lévitan department store. There, hundreds of prisoners work to sort through, repair, and put on display the massive quantities of art, furniture, and household goods looted from Jewish homes and businesses. Forced to wait on German officials and their wives and mistresses, Capucine struggles to hold her tongue in order to survive, remembering happier days spent in the art salons, ateliers, and jazz clubs of Montmartre in the 1920s. Capucine's estranged daughter, Mathilde, remains in the care of her conservative paternal grandparents, who are prospering under the Nazi occupation. But after her mother is arrested and then a childhood friend goes missing, the usually obedient Mathilde finds herself drawn into the shadowy world of Paris's Résistance fighters. As her mind opens to new ways of looking at the world, Mathilde also begins to see her unconventional mother in a different light. When an old acquaintance arrives to go "shopping" at the Lévitan department store on the arm of a Nazi officer and secretly offers to help Capucine get in touch with Mathilde, this seeming act of kindness could have dangerous consequences"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Mothers and daughters; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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