The Orchid Shroud
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.61 (855 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0385661193 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 352 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-11-19 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
All rights reserved. This horror puts Mara and her sometime boyfriend Julian Wood, landscape designer and orchidologist, on a circuitous pathway of investigation that toggles back and forth between centuries and between rival branches of the aristocratic family, and includes enough story lines to furnish half a dozen novels. Interior designer Mara Dunn is overseeing the restoration of a manor owned by Christophe de Bonfond, scion of the area's leading family, when workmen make a terrible discovery: the remains of an infant, wrapped in a silken shroud and buried inside the thick walls. The end result is not a more mysterious mystery but a cumbrous muddle. From Publishers Weekly Wan's sequel to her debut, Deadly Slipper (2005), nicely depicts an appealing village in the Dordogne, a part of France rarely seen as a fictional setting, and two lead characters with interesting vocations. Unfor
Forensic analysis shows that the infant, nicknamed Baby Blue after the blue silk shawl it was wrapped in, was smothered and that the crime took place over a hundred years ago.Julian and Mara are increasingly drawn into the web of this old crime. Julian, always searching for his mystery orchid, discovers that the infant’s shawl is embroidered with a botanically accurate depiction of the very flower he has been seeking, while Mara finds herself a suspect in a more recent murder, one that seems to be linked not only to the dead infant but to the terrifying spectre of a modern-day werewolf.As sinister revelations threaten to pull Mara and Julian apart, The Orchid Shroud will draw readers into the legends and superstitions of the Dordogne, the competitive business of the French wine industry, and the breathtaking world of wild orchids. Julian has been engaged by Christophe’s cousin, Antoine, to landscape the new sales pavilion of his prestigious Coteaux de Bonfond Winery.Things take a horrifying twist when Mara’s workmen find a mummified baby in the manor house wall. All served with a dollop of superb Dordognais cookery.. She has been contracted by Julian’s old friend, Christophe de Bonfond, to restore his sixteenth-century manor house, her biggest commission yet. Following Michelle Wan’s masterful debut Deadly
"Blood Is My Right!" A Customer French Canadian interior designer Mara Dunn and orchidologist Julian Wood are back in another complex and multifaceted mystery that involves mysterious orchids, legendary werewolves, and feuding branches of an ancient French aristocratic family. Author Michelle Wan once again immerses the reader in bucolic landscape of the Dordogne region of France, its quaint villages, serene farms and flourishing wineries.While employed to renovate the upper floor of C. "Overcrowded but still worth the read" according to Bella Rosa. I liked this book much more than I thought I would, particularly the protagonist Mara. The Reed review at the top of the page is correct that there seem to be dozens of plot points - orchids, historic renovation, genealogy, French cuisine, lycanthropy, wine making, landscaping, oh and the dead baby in the wall. Some threads went nowhere, but each was so firmly placed in the context of the character's lives it didn't bother me. My only quibble was the his. Another Part of the Chase for Cypripedium incognito Told Amazon Customer Finding the elusive Cypripedium incognito orchid in France is making genealogical historians out of Julian and Mara. Then, identifying all the players in the past and what roles they played with sketchy information from old letters and diaries and the faulty memories (maybe purposefully faulty) of the local people have Julian chasing down any and every path. Meanwhile, Mara tries to clear herself of having committed a particularly terrible murder and fee