Bestselling Author Allison Pataki has brought her brother, Owen, in as co-author of a new book released today called
Where The Light Falls.
Acclaimed by the great American novelist of our time, Tom Wolfe, this work of historical fiction captures in graphic detail the gore of the guillotine in Revolutionary France.
Though deliberately confusing to build the shadowy anxiety of the time, I suggest reading the Author's note at the end first, which clarifies the similarities in name choices to real historical figures, like Murat vs. Marat. Though the setting is solid, the story line seems more fictional than Allison Pataki's earlier works,
The Traitor's Wife,
The Accidental Empress, and
Sisi, Empress on Her Own.
The novel adds the perspective of the middle-class experience, a young, idealistic lawyer risking the lives of his own family to serve justice. Whereas novels like Les Miserables highlight the plight of the poor, and the outrages that impelled people to revolution, and movies capture the ridiculous excess of failing monarchs, the Patakis offer what it was like for the middle ranks, the young and educated, not the merchant or bourgeois class, but those building simple lives in a changing and dangerous world.
Owen Pataki's education and experience in the U.S. Armed Services enhances the description of Napoleon Bonaparte's Egyptian campaign, and brings the reality of combat, death and sacrifice into the story as no career civilian could. The global swaths of history are layed out in brilliant color readers can hear, feel, and almost smell. The bad guys who go too far are defeated, those who weren't that bad and survived are brought back into service, and though tragedy and loss are sustained, a new, fairer Government emerges with strength.
From the streets of Paris to the desert battlefield, the dramatic story emerges. I highly recommend this both as a great summer read if you like fiction, and as a historical work by highly educated Authors with family background in politics and France. If it hasn't been already, it should be translated into French. Here is a link to the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Where-Light-Falls-French-Revolution/dp/0399591680/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1499770984&sr=8-1&keywords=where+the+light+falls&linkCode=sl1&tag=hlg2-20&linkId=cf85669eb99753815e1f408c89f6f148
