Belle Epoque

Belle Epoque by Elizabeth Ross is the story of an unlikely friendship in 1880s Paris.

Maude Pichon ran away from home to make a life in Paris. But Paris is more difficult to manage that the young woman from Brittany realized. She when she sees an advertisement in the paper she decides to apply - even though the ad asked for ugly girls.

The Durandeau Agency places plain women in social situations. Their job is to make whomever they are with look better by comparison. They are often hired for events during the season - when young women attend social events in the hopes of catching a good match in marriage.

Maude will be hired for a similar job, but the young woman she is to act as a foil with will not know. Countess Dubern has hired Maude to accompany her daughter Isabelle during her season. While Maude is being paid well and will get a significant bonus is Isabelle gets engaged, Maude likes Isabelle. While she cannot be honest with her new friend, she sees that Isabelle has plans other than marriage.

Ross has written a wonderful and fascinating book based on a real ad she saw in a old Paris newspaper. Her writing transports readers to 1888 and immerses us in the rich life of Paris. A must read for historical fiction fans and people who love Paris.

Ross, Elizabeth. (2013). Belle Epoque. New York: Random House.

Code Name Verity (Code Name Verity #1)

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein is an amazing book. It is the story of two young women during World War II -  one captured spy and one pilot.

This is the type of novel you want to tell everyone to read, but you can't really explain too much of what it is about without giving too much away.

Read it, you will be sucked in and captured until long after you have reread it. If there was a list of mandatory titles all humans should read, I would nominate this book - both as a look at the destruction of war on humanity and as a beautiful example of friendship.

The woman whose code name is Verity has been captured by the Gestapo in occupied France in October of 1943. She makes a deal to tell them everything she knows of the British plans and defense if she can only have her clothes back. But to understand how and why she came to France, she starts her narrative with her best friend Maddie in 1938 - when Maddie decided she had to learn to fly airplanes.

What follows is the story of two very different young women and how they are entangled in the war effort, how their paths intersected and what to lengths they will go in order to try and protect each other. Really, just read it! Buy it and read it. Or go to the library and check it out and read it. But if the library doesn't have it available at this moment, buy it.

Wein, Elizabeth. (2012). Code Name Verity. New York: Hyperion.

Exodus

Exodus by Julie Bertagna takes place in one of our possible futures - a world full of water with very little land left after the polar ice caps melt.

The year is 2099 and Mara is fifteen. She lives on the island of Wing in the north. Each year the winter gets longer and the water rises making the island smaller.

The people must do something before there is no land left. When Mara finds evidence of new cities build for people to live high in the air above the rising water, the island people load their fishing boats and head south.

The do find one of the fabled sky cities, but there is no way in...

Bertagna, Julie. (2008). Exodus. New York: Walker Publishing Company.