Elizabeth Taylor Books

When Taylor Madison's Volkswagen broke down just outside of Perdue, Texas' limits, she wondered if this whole trip was worth it. After all, her editor was waiting for her new book and Taylor was flat broke after paying for her mother's funeral expenses. How on earth was she going to afford to pay for car repairs? Still, at least her trusty Beetle made it to the little town where her mother grew up and where her Aunt Tessa lived. Taylor had never met her Aunt Tessa, in fact, she never even knew that she existed until she found a mysterious letter in her mother's jewelry box. Taylor was determined to meet her and to find out what drove them apart for all those long years. However, Tessa's reception wasn't exactly what she had hoped for. Tessa threw her out of her home without even giving her a chance to explain why she was there. Luckily, Sheriff Miles Crawford offered to make her a temporary deputy for the duration of the Rattlesnake Festival so she could earn enough money to pay Roger for her car repairs. Unluckily, Sheriff Crawford was dead within a few days of her arrival.

It appeared that the Sheriff was bitten by a huge rattlesnake while reading in his living room and died from poison. But Taylor Madison, aka "Maddy Taylor" mystery writer, knew a setup when she saw one. She was determined to find out what really killed this man who was kind to her and to pin down her Aunt Tessa regarding her mother Sarah. If only she could get her fellow deputies, Lester & Cal, to take her seriously, she would have some help with the investigation. But it would take some near death misses and other strange occurrences before anyone else in the sleepy town of Perdue would even consider that the Sheriff's death was murder...

This was a fabulous first book in a great new series. Taylor Madison is a wonderful heroine and has a dry sense of humor that I found very entertaining. All of secondary characters are great, too. There is Lester, the town's golden boy who is being groomed to become the next Sheriff; Cal, the other candidate for Sheriff who seems to be interested in Taylor in a romantic way; Hazel, Taylor's pet ferret who definitely has a personality of her own; Billy, the skittish sheriff dispatcher who is never quite sure what to keep a secret; Billy's sister, Rita, the waitress as Lucy's Cafe who doesn't know the meaning of the word secret and spreads rumors all over town, as well as a host of other characters to keep the story lively. The author does a great job at portraying life in a small town and the complex relationships between everyone. The mystery was well thought out and came to a natural conclusion. The story had lovely pacing and great descriptions. If you have enjoyed Charlaine Harris' Teagarden or Shakespeare series, you should love this series, too! Highly recommended for mystery lovers!

I could not put Diamondback down! This was a great book. It provided mystery, humor, small town closeness and strangeness (snake festival). Where I wouldn't compare it with Janet Evanovich, I would compare it to Kathleen Taylor's series. I have the second book Twice Dead ready to read next and I hope there will be a third out soon. Don't miss out on this author.

Combine humor, family secrets and murder, and the resulting DIAMONDBACK by Elizabeth Dearl keeps this fast-paced mystery both entertaining and surprising to the end!

Mystery author Taylor Madison manages to wreck her prized Volkswagen when a rattler sudden appears on the highway and she swerves to avoid it. Her five hundred-mile journey ends in Perdue City, Texas, population 2,948, where she's soon aghast to learn that she's arrived just in time for a rattlesnake festival. Taylor's purpose for coming to Perdue City is to confront her estranged aunt, a woman whose existance Taylor only learned about a week following her mother's death. Taylor had unexpectedly come across a card tucked away in her mother's personal effects, suggesting that her mother had not been open or honest about her past.

When she hikes into town, Taylor's relieved to finally find an open hardware store to get warm. The owner apologizes that there's no taxi in town, but does offer the services of the local sheriff as chauffeur. The sheriff, Miles Crawford, takes a personal interest in her from the first moment he sees Taylor. First he drives her to her aunt's house, where she's quickly ejected from the home. Then he appoints her deputy sheriff to earn money for her car repair, and helps to secure a room over the hardware store while she stays in Perdue City.

The sheriff's kindness ends rather quickly, however, when his housekeeper finds him dead in his recliner. Since no one else was immediately available, Taylor is called to the scene, where she observes several inconsistencies that point, not to an accidental rattlesnake bite, but murder.

Who would have thought rattlesnakes could be funny and entertaining? But in Dearl's hands, the rattlesnakes and the ferret steal the show. With lots of rattlesnake lore, plenty of comic relief, and a generous dose of attitude, I couldn't put DIAMONDBACK down. I highly recommend it.

Diamondback takes you to the heart of small-towns, Texas-style. With a grapevine that rivals the Internet for disseminating information, Elizabeth Dearl shows life in a small town at its absolute best.... and worst. She sets the stage of Perdue, TX and invites all her readers to move in along side Taylor Madison, a spunky newcomer who fits right in. Or does she?

A multi-layered plot, multi-dimensioned characters, and mutli-rattled critters, Ms. Dearl knows her stuff-from police procedure to milkin' rattlers. Readers are in for a welcome and exciting and challenging read.

I just finished reading Diamondback. What an awesome mystery! I loved it! Couldn't put it down. The characters, the dialogue and the setting are so real I felt I was in Perdue. Excellent and well-constructed plot! I had no idea whodunit until the end. The suspense kept me turning the pages faster and faster. The main character, Taylor Madison is one of the best and strongest female characters I have read in a long time. Very unique and original. And Cal, her new love interest, is such a cutie! I'm glad this is a series because I can't wait to read more about these characters. Oh, and it was so funny in places I was laughing out loud. What a wry sense of humor this author has! I also loved the heroine's pet ferret, all the interesting secondary characters, the creepy snakes...just everything. This author has incredible talent and skill. Count me in as a major fan!

I found Twice Dead to be a vacation between book covers. The reader goes to a unique place, a town in northwest Texas, and is swept along by events in the lives of unique characters. You can get so far down into the story you forget your own surroundings. Not a bad pay-back for few bucks and a few hours. I'm watching for Ms. Dearl's next book.

Elizabeth Dearl's second book, TWICE DEAD, is just as intriguing and suspenseful, quirky and amusing, as her first book in this series, DIAMONDBACK. In this story, sassy blonde amateur sleuth Taylor Madison and her adorable ferret return for more thrills and chills as they solve a thirty-five year old mystery after finding a skeleton in the chimney. Who killed Ralph Posey? I'll never tell. This one will keep you guessing to the surprising ending. Very highly recommended!!!

Twice Dead is another winner for author Elizabeth Dearl! If you've read Dearl's first Taylor Madison mystery, Diamondback, you will be happy to know that the action, suspense, romance and excitement in Twice Dead are just as intense, if not moreso.

Taylor and her pet ferret, Hazel, become enmeshed in the mystery surrounding the thirty-five-year-old disappearance of Ralph Posey. When Ralph's remains unexpectedly surface, Taylor is determined to prove, against vastly incriminating evidence, that her elderly friend, Bonita Posey, is not a murderer. But there are some who do not want Taylor, a relative newcomer to the town, poking around in the past -- and there are some who would do anything to prevent certain evidence coming to light.

Twice Dead is a gem of a read -- and I dare you to guess whodunit!

Taylor Madison has settled down into her father's old house in Perdue, Texas and is busy trying to write a new mystery novel, keep anyone from noticing that Cal Arnette, the man running for Sheriff in a month's time and her boyfriend, is spending most nights over at her house, and stay on top of the gossip coming from her neighbor Dorothy. So the last thing she needs is to find a skeleton in her friend Bonita "Bo" Posey's closet. Well, chimney in this case.

When Taylor persuaded Cal to drive her out to Bo's house on the chance of finding some good garage sale bargains they found a male skeleton wedged up the chimney with a shovel. Turns out the skeleton belongs to Ralph, Bo's preacher husband who supposedly ran off with all the church funds years ago. Since it was Bo's husband and she made no bones about her hatred for the man, Bo was the natural suspect for the murder. Taylor knows that her friend Bo would never kill her husband, no matter how much she hated him, and is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.

But as Taylor gets involved in the past, she uncovers more mysteries instead of solutions. Why does Faith, Bo's daughter hate her? What happened to Harvey Neff, Ralph's sidekick? Why does Lewis Tucker, arguably the richest man in town live like a pauper? And what caused Lewis and Faith to break up on the night of his accident? How is the slimy new deputy Oliver Burke involved in the whole mess? And, most importantly, what is going on between Cal and the attractive Srgt. Molly Sullivan of the Lubbock Sheriff's Department? As Taylor hunts to uncover the answers to the mystery, she is forced to make some difficult decisions, but decides that she cannot let the past stay buried...

This is the second book in the Taylor Madison series and it is just as good as the first one, Diamondback. I love that the author keeps the same characters coming back for more so that readers of the series can see what is happening in their lives, but first time readers will find Dearl's brief backgrounds more that adequate to catch them up. The little town of Perdue, TX is a great setting for this series and the characters are absolutely wonderful. Be on the lookout for more by this author - she is just fabulous!

Mystery writer Taylor Madison returns for another outstanding mystery accompanied by her adorable pet ferret Hazel and a compelling cast of ecentric characters. Taylor enjoys living in small town Perdue, Texas. She is comfortably settled into a dating routine with the town's sexy sheriff, Cal Arnette, several months after solving the murder of Cal's predecessor. Hearing rumors a particularly promising garage sale, she convinces Cal to accompany her out to elderly Bo Posey's place.

Poking through old furniture, junk, and memories, Taylor finds a shocking surprise. Everyone assumed Bo's husband left town thirty-five years ago. Now Taylor finds his skeleton in the chimney of Bo's guesthouse, leaving the elderly to be the primary suspect in a murder investigation. Taylor's determined to prove Bo's innocence, and begins her own investigation. Her well-meaning interference triggers danger to Cal's career as sheriff as opportunists use the leaks of information for their own political purposes. Worse, it soon becomes apparent that someone's willing to kill to keep the secrets of the past buried.

Author Elizabeth Dearl creates a fast-paced mystery in TWICE DEAD. The multidimensional characterizations offer the plot interesting complexity, as each person slowly reveals secrets of the past. Indeed, TWICE DEAD brings the past and present into a collision course that supplies a surprising ending guaranteed to satisfy fans of mystery and suspense. Readers who enjoyed the first of this series, DIAMONDBACK, will delight in the increasing maturity of this author's style. New fans will find TWICE DEAD an excellent stand-alone. Very highly recommended.

I have several books on Frida Kahlo in fact an earlier version written by the same author, but I felt this addition stands on its own & warrants keeping as there is enough new information, visuals to make it a keeper.

My wife and I saw the recent Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Walker in Minneapolis. We both thoroughly enjoyed it. I bought the book "Frida Kahlo" on line from Amazon as a gift for my wife. My wife has a bad back as did Frida. The pain in her body comes through in her art, and I think my wife felt a strong connection with Frida. My wife loved the book, and she was very happy with the gift.

To say that this is a major catalogue from a major exhibit is to ignore the more important point...this is a collection of brilliant essays on Kahlo and stunning photographs of her painting and related works and people in the Kahlo circle, but also Mexican folk art, history and the modernist movement in Mexico. He is also a thrilling writer and critic on the use of allegory and on Kahlo and RIvera's hatred of what Zamudio-Taylor calls "the modern capitalist universe" against which both Kahlo and RIvera rewrote "Mexico's fragmented and violently interrupted history." As Z-T states, "Kahlo's mexicanidad prefigures postmodernism's distrust of progress and linear readings of history. This, most striking article, however, by Zamudio-Taylor who has apparently had extensive contact with her work and its curiatorial special questions, emphasizes Kahlo's work as existing at the cross-roads of a history and of conflicting narratives. He links her concerns not only with other Mexican painters and writers, but also the avant-garde in Paris; namely, Andre Breton. This article is amazing both for its erudition and its multi-dimensionality and detail.
This work is a collection also of fabulous paintings, photographs, time lines and for these reasons it is a must have in any library on Mexican art, modernism etc. Z-T is perhaps the most formidable of the authors of essays, but the book has also other major contributors, ie Carpenter, but especially Hayden Herrera and who interrogate Kahlo's legacy also as it influences those who followed, while also following up on the specific riffs in the work of others on the body, on the poetics of self that have their roots in Kahlos combustive images.

Frida Kahlo is my personal favorite artist. I love her use of bright, vivid colors for subject matter that is often dark and filled with melancholy. I recently had the immense pleasure of seeing Frida's work in person at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. FRIDA KAHLO is the companion piece to the exhibit. The book focuses more on Frida's work as an artist than her tumultuous personal life which most people know by now thanks to a PBS documentary a few years ago and a biopic. Most of the book contains gorgeous photographs of Frida's paintings. I think this book is definitely worth checking out if you have seen the exhibit. It is a nice to have something to remember when the exhibit closes in January.

This is the catalogue for the current exhibition at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.It is divided into three essays: the first studies the artist as a Mexican modernist (the aim being to study her art itself, setting aside the myth), the second follows her life through the numerous photographs that were taken of her and which have survived (she was one of the most photographed artists of the XXth century), and the third describes the legacy of the artist (especially interesting is her influence on contemporary artists such as Kiki Smith).

The color plates of Kahlo's works (portraits, self-portraits and still-lifes) which form the exhibition are grouped in one section, as well as a private collection of photographs of both herself and Diego Rivera.

The book is not as complete as the 2005 Tate catalogue as far as the works illustrated are concerned, but the essays are more thorough and give valuable insights on the artist and her art.

I MUST SAY THAT THIS MARVELOUS BOOK WRAPS UP ALL OF ELIZABETH TAYLOR'S CAREER COVERING MOST OF HER BEAUTIFUL APPEARANCES ON FILM & THEN SOME.I ONLY WISH THEY WOULD MAKE A VERY LOVELY COLORIZED VERSION OF IT,TO SHOW THE LIZ IN ALL HER BEAUTY.CHILD STAR ON UP TO SUPERSTARDOM,FROM NATIONAL VELVET TO CLEOPATRA TO CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF,GIANT,RAINTREE COUNTY,ELEPHANT WALK,A PLACE IN THE SUN,CONPIRATOR,IVANHO,BUTTERFIELD 8,SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER,REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE,THE VIP'S,ASH WEDNESDAY,THE MIRROR CRACKED.LONG LIVE THE LIZ!,AND TO MARK THE RARE OF ALL HER MOVIES THE BLUEBIRD WITH THE LEGENDARY LATE,GREAT AVA GARDNER!JOEY HOFFMAN DOVER PA.

I MUST SAY THAT THIS MARVELOUS BOOK WRAPS UP ALL OF ELIZABETH TAYLOR'S CAREER COVERING MOST OF HER BEAUTIFUL APPEARANCES ON FILM & THEN SOME.I ONLY WISH THEY WOULD MAKE A VERY LOVELY COLORIZED VERSION OF IT,TO SHOW THE LIZ IN ALL HER BEAUTY.CHILD STAR ON UP TO SUPERSTARDOM,FROM NATIONAL VELVET TO CLEOPATRA TO CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF,GIANT,RAINTREE COUNTY,ELEPHANT WALK,A PLACE IN THE SUN,CONPIRATOR,IVANHO,BUTTERFIELD 8,SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER,REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE,THE VIP'S,ASH WEDNESDAY,THE MIRROR CRACKED.LONG LIVE THE LIZ!,AND TO MARK THE RARE OF ALL HER MOVIES THE BLUEBIRD WITH THE LEGENDARY LATE,GREAT AVA GARDNER!JOEY HOFFMAN DOVER PA.

I MUST SAY THAT THIS MARVELOUS BOOK WRAPS UP ALL OF ELIZABETH TAYLOR'S CAREER COVERING MOST OF HER BEAUTIFUL APPEARANCES ON FILM & THEN SOME.I ONLY WISH THEY WOULD MAKE A VERY LOVELY COLORIZED VERSION OF IT,TO SHOW THE LIZ IN ALL HER BEAUTY.CHILD STAR ON UP TO SUPERSTARDOM,FROM NATIONAL VELVET TO CLEOPATRA TO CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF,GIANT,RAINTREE COUNTY,ELEPHANT WALK,A PLACE IN THE SUN,CONPIRATOR,IVANHO,BUTTERFIELD 8,SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER,REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE,THE VIP'S,ASH WEDNESDAY,THE MIRROR CRACKED.LONG LIVE THE LIZ!,AND TO MARK THE RARE OF ALL HER MOVIES THE BLUEBIRD WITH THE LEGENDARY LATE,GREAT AVA GARDNER!JOEY HOFFMAN DOVER PA.

I always grab up any book I can find by Elizabeth Dearl. She's a fabulously talented writer with a unique style and an engaging voice. Her latest, Triple Threat, is a real treat. This book contains not one, but two mysteries starring the fun and outrageous amateur sleuth/ mystery writer Taylor Madison and her cute ferret, Hazel. Set in the colorful small town of Perdue, Texas, both stories are slyly humorous, intriguing and edge-of-your-seat suspenseful. I just love all Ms. Dearl's quirky characters. They are so real I feel I know them. In the first story, a novella entitled `Buyer's Remorse', Taylor temporarily moves in with her friend, Paula, to help her clean out and repair her recently- purchased, run down and potentially haunted house in the country. Is the house truly haunted or is the "ghost" an alive and well person with an ax to grind? The second story, novel three in the series, `Triple Threat,' involves a fascinating mixture of ingredients-- triplets who hate each other, a tornado, an amateur tornado hunter, a funeral, a bizarre will-- that cook up into one complex, outrageous and suspenseful mystery. No way will you guess the ending of either of these stories.

In this, Elizabeth Dearl's third Taylor Madison mystery, we find ourselves pulled even deeper into the lives and loves of the inhabitants of the small town of Perdue, Texas. All our favorite characters are still there, continuing to tickle us with their unique quirks and charms, but new characters take center stage bringing with them personal histories and experiences that pull us immediately into a hotbed of mystery and intrigue. A dead father's simple wish to reunite his triplet daughters becomes increasingly more complex until Taylor, her handsome sheriff lover, Cal, and the town in general, find themselves embroiled in a murder mystery as frightening and unpredictable as the tornado that pays Perdue a destructive visit.

To add to the total enjoyment of this novel, the publisher has included a short novella written by Dearl entitled Buyer's Remorse. This gem of a read finds Taylor helping a friend move into a newly purchased, dilapidated house. There's mystery and excitement aplenty, with ghostly visits and even a treasure. Taylor's side-kick, her pet ferret named Hazel, plays an integral role in the solution of this engrossing short mystery.

Triple Threat, like Dearl's previous Taylor Madison mysteries, Diamondback and Twice Dead, is completely absorbing. I cannot praise the characterization and writing style enough. The author blends her personal expertise in forensics, investigative procedures and police work with a uniquely witty dialogue and description to produce a tantalizing blend of intrigue, romance and excitement that's truly unforgettable. If you haven't yet read a Taylor Madison mystery, do yourself a favor and pick one up now.

Triple Threat begins with a novella called Buyer's Remorse (app. 125 pages) and then flows into the main story. Buyer's Remorse is about Paula, Lester's widow and survivor of domestic abuse. She has been working hard at putting her past behind her and is the police dispatcher. However, when she buys the old Fisher place, she immediately regrets it and calls on Taylor to help her out. Turns out that Abraham & Violet Fisher's house is beautiful, but has been let go for a long time and is really run down. Still, Taylor knows that they can set it to rights if they work at it and so they both dive into cleaning and sorting and rewiring the electricity. The last thing they need is Abraham's ghost showing up to scare them to death. As scraps of Abraham's journal show up, discovered who knows where by Hazel, Taylor's pet ferret, Taylor & Paula discover that Abraham regrets murdering someone during the Great Depression. But who? And why? Is Abraham's ghost really haunting the house or is the specter all too human and looking for some long-lost treasure?

In Triple Threat, Taylor is saddened to hear that Hank Barton of Hope's Feed & Hardware has passed away. Hank was the first one to welcome Taylor into Perdue and let her stay in the apartment above his store for free until she had the means to move out. He was survived by his daughters: Lily & Rose who had just moved back to town a year or so ago. Lily ran a flower shop, Rose a secondhand clothing store and Rose's husband, Justin, took over the hardware store. Taylor was pretty good friends with Rose and was shocked to hear that the twins were actually triplets and that they had another sister out there somewhere named Iris. Taylor was even more surprised at the sisters' reaction when Hank's will was read. Turns out Hank wanted his girls to be reunited more than anything so he put a codicil in his will that would give all of his property to the NRA if the girls didn't spend one year living under the same roof together. From the way Rose & Lily reacted, you'd think that they hated Iris. But why?

When Iris showed up a couple of days later, Taylor wasn't surprised that she looked just like her sisters, but she was surprised at how many accidents happened to her. Iris received a death threat, almost drowned in the lake, and then went missing in a freak tornado accident. Who wanted her dead? Taylor wasn't sure if anything was deliberate, but she was too busy trying to keep Cal from blowing a fuse over the new Citizens' Police Academy that Billy, a brand new deputy and Bo, City Councilwoman, had cooked up between the two of them. What with the triplets' weird behavior, townspeople learning to shoot, a grieving mother, and a bout of the flu, Taylor has her hands full trying to solve this mystery!

This is third book in the Taylor Madison series (and first short story?) and it is just as fabulous as the first two. Dearl has a lovely, smooth writing style and knows how to pace her stories perfectly so that the reader is never bored, but the endings don't come up too quickly. Her characters are very memorable and I just get a kick out of all of the small town people in this book because I have met people just like them. All of Dearl's books are well worth reading and the extra cost associated with the books (or you can buy them for a fraction of the cost in ebook format). If you love mysteries, you will thoroughly enjoy this series! I can't wait for the next one to come out!

Understand Police Officers and Staying Out of Trouble

Unfinished Business is one of the best action romance stories I've ever read. It would also make a very good movie for tv or the big screen. Mrs Taylor spared no details in bringing her story to life in words. She actually painted her scenes to life with great expression and detailed description. In this story you never have a dull moment in reading. All of her characters bring suspense, action and adventure to the story. Reading this story makes one think that the author had some type worldly espionage experience herself. She writes as though she use to be one of the characters in a real life adventure. It is a very well writtern story which keeps the readers attention from the beginning to the end. I recommend this book to all who enjoy plenty of action, suspense and romance. Get this book and read it, you will not regret it.

GEMorrison

With this first book, Elizabeth Lucas-Taylor has crafted a winner from first page to last. Dubbed romantic intrigue by the author, it was that and much more. The characters were well-developed, the technical aspect of the story realistic, and her writing full bodied.

Lindsay Mayer is insecure, plump, and maybe just a little frumpish around the edges. Her marriage to the irresistably sexy Griffin is unraveling. He's been troubled lately, avoiding her, and staying gone from home for increasing periods of time. What is her college professor hubby up to? Despite the love and chemistry they've always shared, Lindsay fears he may have found another woman. When she discovers him in his bathrobe, sharing a ritzy hotel room with an exotic beauty, her worst fear is confirmed.

The proof of Griffin's infidelity almost kills her. When she doesn't hear from him in weeks, she feels her life is over. Enter a savvy long time friend, Chloe Brennan, recently assigned to a new position in Washington, DC. Chloe has the contacts and the means of turning her friend's life around, if only Lindsay will cooperate for once. The shattered Lindsay has nothing left to lose. With Griffin gone, her life is over anyway, so she puts herself in Chloe's hands.

Segue five years into the future. Lindsay has now been successfully transformed into Honor Danforth, technical wunderkind of the British MI5. Expert in foreign languages and dialects, master of computer wizardry, tireless tracker of elusive foreign agents. she blocks all thoughts of Griffin from her heart and mind. She's shed excess weight, dyed and straightened her curly hair, changed her eye color and adopted a British accent to reflect her new life. The pain of Griffin's loss is blunted. She's moved on to another life, but not to another man. No man could ever be enough after Griffin.

When she's assigned to protect the British Embassy in Washington DC, everything she ever believed about her marriage is rocked with one revelation after another. Griffin appears in tuxedoed splendor, hobnobbing with British and American dignitaries with suave familiarity. And then she learns he's CIA - one of the best - assigned to her team, in league to ferret out one of the worst terrorists the West has ever known.

Griffin believes his wife died five years before. He's never come to grips with the guilt and sorrow. For certain he has avoided replacing her because Lindsay can never be replaced. His immediate sexual attraction to the cool and very British Honor Danforth is a mystery, but one he's bent on solving.

If ever any male and female belonged together in the biblical sense, it's Griffin and Lindsay/Honor. But each plays their own game as agent until the old familiar chemistry takes over. Amidst that inevitable sexual explosion, somehow they must stay on their toes and thwart the plans of Embassy moles and ruthless terrorists.

Oh what a fun trip it was helping these two resolve their Unfinished Business! I recommend it to those who enjoy action and intrigue, but only for adults and mature adolescents due to strong sexual content.

With this first book, Elizabeth Lucas-Taylor has crafted a winner from first page to last. Dubbed romantic intrigue by the author, it was that and much more. The characters were well-developed, the technical aspect of the story realistic, and her writing full bodied.

Lindsay Mayer is insecure, plump, and maybe just a little frumpish around the edges. Her marriage to the irresistably sexy Griffin is unraveling. He's been troubled lately, avoiding her, and staying gone from home for increasing periods of time. What is her college professor hubby up to? Despite the love and chemistry they've always shared, Lindsay fears he may have found another woman. When she discovers him in his bathrobe, sharing a ritzy hotel room with an exotic beauty, her worst fear is confirmed.

The proof of Griffin's infidelity almost kills her. When she doesn't hear from him in weeks, she feels her life is over. Enter a savvy long time friend, Chloe Brennan, recently assigned to a new position in Washington, DC. Chloe has the contacts and the means of turning her friend's life around, if only Lindsay will cooperate for once. The shattered Lindsay has nothing left to lose. With Griffin gone, her life is over anyway, so she puts herself in Chloe's hands.

Segue five years into the future. Lindsay has now been successfully transformed into Honor Danforth, technical wunderkind of the British MI5.
Expert in foreign languages and dialects, master of computer wizardry, tireless tracker of elusive foreign agents. she blocks all thoughts of Griffin from her heart and mind. She's shed excess weight, dyed and straightened her curly hair, changed her eye color and adopted a British accent to reflect her new life. The pain of Griffin's loss is blunted. She's moved on to another life, but not to another man. No man could ever be enough after Griffin.

When she's assigned to protect the British Embassy in Washington DC, everything she ever believed about her marriage is rocked with one revelation after another. Griffin appears in tuxedoed splendor, hobnobbing with British and American dignitaries with suave familiarity. And then she learns he's CIA - one of the best - assigned to her team, in league to ferret out one of the worst terrorists the West has ever known.

Griffin believes his wife died five years before. He's never come to grips with the guilt and sorrow. For certain he has avoided replacing her because Lindsay can never be replaced. His immediate sexual attraction to the cool and very British Honor Danforth is a mystery, but one he's bent on solving.

If ever any male and female belonged together in the biblical sense, it's Griffin and Lindsay/Honor. But each plays their own game as agent until the old familiar chemistry takes over. Amidst that inevitable sexual explosion, somehow they must stay on their toes and thwart the plans of Embassy moles and ruthless terrorists.

Oh what a fun trip it was helping these two resolve their Unfinished Business! I recommend it to those who enjoy action and intrigue, but only for adults and mature adolescents due to strong sexual content.

This is an amazing story...very engaging and one learns a great deal about bees and ecology in a fun way. Maya has much attitude!

Many years ago I gave this book to my former elementary school teacher; I was happy to find out later that she read it to every generation of students until she retired.

Waldemar Bonsels masterfully crafted a book in which the insect world is a metaphore/allegory of the humans'. Its stories are about compasion, love, loss, loyalty, heroism, life and death, even ethics, and maybe provide the reader with a better understanding of the world's diversity.

Maya's story starts from the moment the little bee is born. Although she was supposed to be a working bee, she is too inquisitive to be satisfied with that, so she leaves the beehive to learn more about the world. Every creature she encounters and every experience, good or bad, seem to bring a bit of wisdom into little Maya's mind and eventually into the reader's.

This is a book that was written almost a century ago in Europe, yet it's as great a read today as it was the first day it was published. It's a book rich in many ways: the stories are fascinating, endearing, meaningful and told in a form that is intellectually evolved enough to be enjoyed by an adult, yet very accessible to a child's level of comprehension. I read this book first when I was 8 and had fun reading it again at 38.

Maya the Bee seems to be a much more popular character in Europe. I always wondered why, although published here a long time ago, this book never became popular in the States. Then again, at the time Maya was spreading her wings in Europe, Disney was begining to captivate the imagination of children on this side of the Atlantic.
Oooh, the power of marketing...

When Sue Doran writes about something you ,the reader, can be assured the result will be an indepth study of her subject matter...no just brush the surface with this writer...Here you will read about the political and social intrigue surrounding Elizabeth I and her courtships.The author focuses on a different approach to the Virgin Queen's trials in trying to govern England and handle the many "would be"and serious suitors.A most interesting and informative book for those interested in history.

This is a unique study which is of equal value to the academic or the interested amateur. For too long Christopher Haig's dated and simplified account of the Virgin Queen's persistent virginity has been allowed to dominate Elizabethan history. Susan Doran takes each of Elizabeth's courtships seriously instead of blindly assuming a grand narrative. Although female historians are relatively new to the public arena, Susan Doran has "the heart and stomach of a man".

Il montrait sa soeur Sophie qui mourait jeune, entouree de toute la famille. Mais il montrait chacun a l'age qu'il avait a l'epoque de la peinture, et non pas a la mort de la jeune fille. Car la douleur durait a jamais et unifiait toute la famille pour toujours. Puis avec des tetes d'une femme et d'un homme, gravees et multicolorees, il cessait de suivre le style repandu des japonais de faire une seule couleur d'un seul troncon de bois. Son prefere de tout son oeuvre etait Sick Child II, en tant que sa premiere lithographie en couleur. Mais son Scream est le plus reconnu, en tant que l'image la plus frappante du 20eme siecle.

He was bound determined not to paint people reading and women knitting, but instead to show people who breathed emotions into his darkly suggestive prints. "Death in the sickroom" showed family members at the ages when they were painted, not when his sister Sophie died; it expressed unity in grief as one of death's longlasting effects by seemingly overlapping planes flowing together across bleakly empty areas, starkly B&W contrasts, and stiffly posed mourners frozen in misery. "The mirror" heads of a disembodied man and woman was his first woodcut to give up the Japanese method of printing each color with a separate woodblock; instead, he jigsawed blocks into pieces according to compositional design, linked each piece with a different color, and put everything back together into a multicolored print. He considered his "Sick child II" his most important print: his first color lithograph, it focused on the diseased upper chest and the head in profile facing right against a large pillow in order to gaze with tragically meditative resignation into the flatly patterned looming void on the far right. However, his "Scream" became the most compelling image for the late twentieth century: it expressed terror before the universe by powerfully decorative lines reverberating through the starkly opposed black lines and bleakly white voids of pulsing land and sky. Elizabeth Prelinger and Michael Parke-Taylor have applied reader-friendly illustrations and text to their catalog of the Vivian and David Campbell exhibition. Their SYMBOLIST PRINTS OF EDVARD MUNCH goes down good with PROGRESSIVE PRINTMAKERS by Warrington Colescott and Arthur Hove, PRINTS AND PRINTMAKING by Antony Griffiths, EDVARD MUNCH by Josef Paul Hodin, and THE PRINT IN THE WESTERN WORLD by Linda C Hults.

This book is an amazing photoessay depicting the title - transcendence of spirit above diversity. I shamelessly copied one of the images and made it a part of my daily environment...

This is NOT a coffee-table book - it is worth studying!

A gorgeous book. The photographs are beautifully composed and convey a sensitivity to these kids that is moving. The work is often reminiscent of the masterful human interest photography of Gordon Parks.