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Formats
Paperback Book Details
  • 10/2013
  • 9780985418236
  • 362 pages
  • $14.99
Open Ebook Ebook Details
  • 10/2013
  • 9780985418267
  • 353 pages
  • $2.99
Hardcover Book Details
  • 10/2013
  • 9780985418243
  • 355 pages
  • $26.99
Adele Hays
Author
The Sixth
Avery Hays, author

Adult; General Fiction (including literary and historical); (Market)

Welcome to the gaslit, cobblestoned streets of Paris, 1910. Florbela Sarmentos, 21, knows what she wants: art, romance, and to free her father from the prison of Portugal's despotic King Manuel II. Born in Lisbon, educated in London and at a painting academy in Cherbourg, France, the cosmopolitan Florbela moves to Paris and takes up residence in the wildly bohemian enclave of La Ruche, there to pursue a creative life. Some of the yet-to-be-discovered artists living in her building are Diego Rivera, Amedeo Modigliani and Marc Chagall. By day she paints, and by night she attends parties with the residents of La Ruche, who introduce her to collectors and creative spirits in Paris's fabled Sixth Arrondissement. Along the way, Florbela attracts several hot-headed admirers, two of whom become so inflamed with jealousy that they become each other's deadly enemies. But Florbela's fledgling artistic and social life is soon eclipsed, when she can no longer escape the political shadow of her father, a Portuguese writer imprisoned in Lisbon for criticizing the corrupt monarchy. Florbela tries to find news of her father through Portuguese political exiles and sympathizers in Paris - with alarming results. When she contacts a friend of her father, Professor Almeida, he turns up dead, killed by an assassin from the pro-monarchist society Ordo Crucis Incendio - the Order of the Burning Cross. Professor Almeida's dying words lead Florbela to a secret, encrypted painting that might save her father and overthrow the king. Now, Florbela is the assassin's next target. With the help of Armand, a dashing French rebel, Florbela fights to bring the secret painting to the Portuguese resistance fighters. It just might save her country... and her life.
Reviews
In this spirited debut historical thriller, we meet the worldly, well-bred artist Florbela Sarmentos as she is moving into La Ruche, the histroical decadent residence of artists and political dissidents in 1910 Paris. Born in Lisbon and educated in London and Cherbourg, Florbela is the daughter of Portugal’s leading antimonarchist political prisoner. Florbela rushes headlong into Parisian life accompanied by her mysterious roommate and pursued by lovesick suitors. After witnessing an assassination by hit man The Pope’s Panther, Florbela becomes drawn into her father’s political affairs; her involvement with a gritty underground cabal, a painting, and a secret cipher could change the course of history. Hays’s recreation of the era’s “bohemian bedlam” involves an intriguing who’s who of famous emigrant artists and political exiles—Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Diego Rivera, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, and Vladimir Lenin. Vignettes at salons and La Ruche provide an enjoyable glimpse into the politics, social habits, and fashions of the gaslit era. Though some of the romance aspects are lacking, the political intrigue and its energetic pace will certainly captivate readers. (BookLife)
IndieReader

Hays shines in her portrayal of the artists who frequent Gertrude Stein's salon--Picasso, Modigliani, Rivera and Chagall--prior to their fame: an unusual approach. Hays effectively reveals Florbela's insecurities as an artist searching for her own particular style [and] shows Florbela as a revolutionary-by-proxy into whose hands falls a painting that becomes the key to the overthrow of Portugal's Manuel II.

Kirkus Reviews

An adventure involving political assassination, revolution and a disturbing painting that bears a secret code. Hays' ambitious effort offers a vibrant portrait of the Paris art scene of the early 20th century [and] captures the heady bohemian glamour of Florbela's world.

NY Books Examiner

A well-written, energetically paced storyline that both history and art buffs will find highly enjoyable.

Formats
Paperback Book Details
  • 10/2013
  • 9780985418236
  • 362 pages
  • $14.99
Open Ebook Ebook Details
  • 10/2013
  • 9780985418267
  • 353 pages
  • $2.99
Hardcover Book Details
  • 10/2013
  • 9780985418243
  • 355 pages
  • $26.99
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