Order BEYOND THE LAVENDER FIELDS
How many of you, dear friends, have picked up on the fact that I love historical fiction? Why? Because I love a good story! My radio life, and the successes I’ve found there, are all about The Stories! Combining music and listener stories - beyond typical DJ requests and dedications - made the format I pioneered unique. It’s been working pretty well for me since 1984!
And I love history, yet it wasn’t my favorite subject in school… Enter historical fiction. A genre with exceptional bridge-building powers. Historical fiction pulls the reader into the story while simultaneously immersing them in times and places and situations that a history text could not.
So that is why I’m so drawn to novels like this month’s book club pick, “Beyond The Lavender Fields”, by Arlem Hawks.
Here is a story set in revolutionary-era France with themes as old as time. Must upheaval and violence always be bedfellows of change? Is right and wrong really so easily defined? Why must one always choose sides? And, where does love fit in? Let Beyond The Lavender Fields whisk you away.
“1792, France Rumors of revolution in Paris swirl in Marseille, a bustling port city in southern France. Gilles Etienne, a clerk at the local soap factory, thrives on the news. Committed to the cause of equality, liberty, and brotherhood, he and his friends plan to march to Paris to dethrone the monarchy. His plans are halted when he meets Marie-Caroline Daubin, the beautiful daughter of the owner of the factory.
A bourgeoise and royalist, Marie-Caroline has been called home to Marseille to escape the unrest in Paris. She rebuffs Gilles's efforts to charm her and boldly expresses her view that violently imposed freedom is not really freedom for all. As Gilles and Marie-Caroline spend more time together, she questions her initial assumptions about Gilles and realizes that perhaps they have more in common than she thought.
As the spirit of revolution descends on Marseille, people are killed and buildings are ransacked and burned to the ground. With their lives and their nation in turmoil, both Gilles and Marie-Caroline wonder if a revolutionnaire and a royaliste can really be together or if they must live in a world that forces people to choose sides.”