Gwen Bristow Knihy

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.

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."

""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.