Tato americká autorka proslula svými romantickými westerny, které se často stávaly bestsellery. Její styl byl ovlivněn žurnalistickou kariérou, což se projevilo v plynulém vyprávění a silném smyslu pro detail. Zabývala se rozsáhlejšími formami psaní, jako jsou romány a povídky, přičemž její díla často zkoumala témata lásky a dobrodružství v prostředí amerického západu.
Žhavý Jih je oslavou plantážní práce nikoliv z pohledu Severu, ale z pohledu Jihu a s ostrým uvědoměním rasovým. Je to dílo čistě vyprávěčské naplněné potěšením z činorodého a silně prožitého života, krásného přes všechny tragické zvraty.
Autorka v románě s obdivuhodnou znalostí nabízí obraz americké krajiny, plantáží i měst, ještě v době před vypuknutím války Severu proti Jihu. V popředí děje jsou dvě ženské postavy - chudá a energická Corrie May, ktorá bystým a kritickým zrakem pozoruje své okolí a přímočaře se bouří proti všem křivdám; druhou je Ann Sheramyová, vychována v prostředí zámožných statkářů. Válka přinese nejen veliký sociální a dějinný přelom, ale autorka ličí, jak změní osudy obou ženských hrdinek.
The history of California in the mid-19th century comes alive in this captivating historical novel. Garnet Cameron, a fashionable young lady of New York, is leading a neat, proper life, full of elegant parties and polite young men, yet the prospect of actually marrying any of them appalls her. Yearning for adventure, she instead marries Oliver Hale, a wild trader who is about to cross the mountains and deserts to an unheard-of land called California. During Garnet and Oliver's honeymoon in New Orleans, she meets a dance-hall performer on the lam who calls herself Florinda Grove and is also traveling to California. Along the Jubilee Trail, Garnet and Florinda meet kinds of men never known to them before, and together they make their painstaking way over the harsh trail to Los Angeles, learning how to live without compromise and discover both true friendship and true love.
HISTORICAL FICTION. "New York Times"--Bestselling author Gwen Bristow brings to life Civil War-era Louisiana in the impassioned, poignant story of a plantation mistress and a poor seamstress--and the men they love--whose lives are irrevocably changed as the Old South fallsCorrie May Upjohn stands on the levee, watching men unload the riverboats and wishing she could travel far away. A poor preacher's daughter, she is only fourteen, and her life is already laid out for her: marriage in a year or two, and then decades of drudgery. At nearby Ardeith Plantation, Ann Sheramy Larne lives in luxury, but feels just as imprisoned as Corrie May. Their lives could not be more different, but when the horrors of war and Reconstruction come to Louisiana, these two women will band together to survive. This is the second novel in Gwen Bristow's Plantation Trilogy, which also includes "Deep Summer" and "This Side of Glory."
Bringing to life the heady days of the American Revolution through the eyes of a heroine who played a brave and dramatic part in the conflict, this novel follows Celia Garth, a Charleston native, as she transforms from a fashionable dressmaker to a patriot spy. When the king's army captures Charleston and sweeps through the Carolina countryside in a wave of blood, fire, and debauchery, the rebel cause seems all but lost. But when Francis Marion, a lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army known as The Swamp Fox, recruits Celia as a spy, the tides of war begin to shift. This classic historical novel captures the fervor of 18th-century Charleston, the American Revolution, and a woman who risked her life for the patriot cause.
""Do not doubt me, my friends; you shall all be dead before morning." New Orleans, 1930. Eight guests are invited to a party at a luxurious penthouse apartment, yet on arrival it turns out that no one knows who their mysterious host actually is. The latter does not openly appear, but instead communicates with the guests by radio broadcast. What he has to tell his guests is chilling: that every hour, one of them will die. Despite putting the guests on their guard, the Host's prophecy starts to come horribly true, each demise occurring in bizarre fashion. As the dwindling band of survivors grows increasingly tense, their confessions to each other might explain why they have been chosen for this macabre evening-and invoke the nightmarish thought that the mysterious Host is one of them. The burning question becomes: will any of the party survive, including the Host . . . ? The Invisible Host (1930) established one of the best-loved and most durable forms in classic mystery fiction. It was famously to reappear in Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (1939). How much Christie's novel is indebted to its predecessor is open to conjecture (and the subject is discussed in our new introduction, by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans). Whatever the verdict, readers will delight in The Invisible Host, an innovative and most unusual mystery from the golden age of crime fiction. It was adapted into a play, and a Hollywood movie as The Ninth Guest (1934)"-- Page [4] of cover
The great California gold rush of 1849 is recreated by focusing on the experiences of individual Americans who headed westward, filled with dreams of overnight wealth in the form of gold.
