An Echo in the Bone, by Diana Gabaldon (on CD)

Holy COW, Diana! Is there ANY research that you've done that you have NOT included in the book?? So this covers less than two years (1776-1778) three countries (U.S., Scotland, and France), and 40 CDs!!!

I had to stop a couple of times and 'clear my palate' for a day or two, but I had to get back and finish the story...
...which left me hanging as far as Jemmy's fate, not to mention Claire, who is now a bigamist, and the whole Ian mess.

13 Rue Thérèse, by Elena Mauli Shapiro

Odd little book. The author owns a collection of artifacts from a woman named Marie Brunet who lived in her apartment building 80 years ago. From those artifacts, she has created a story-inside-a-story of an American academic in Paris to do research who is gifted this box of artifacts by his charming and beautiful secretary. He becomes a bit mad about recreating the life of Marie Brunet, eventually becoming part of her life (i.e., going back in time). Interesting, charming--like the secretary--and offbeat.

Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay

Wow! The horrifying hook in this book about the Holocaust is that is tells the story from the point of view of a ten-year-old Parisian girl named Sarah rounded up with her parents by the French police in 1942. Because she doesn't know what is going on around her, she locks her little brother in a hidden cupboard in their house, sure that she'll be back in just a few hours to let him out.

Of course, she isn't back in just a few hours, or days, or weeks.

This story is interspersed in the story of Julia, an American researching this event for a French magazine as she navigates the pitfalls of her marriage and family. That part was far less interesting to me.  I did end up feeling a little gypped in the end because I wanted to hear more about Sarah's life and less about Julia's. In the end, my outlook on the French didn't exactly improve.

A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness

Wow. While not the best amalgam of history, fantasy, and romantic suspense, it's a pretty good story. We have a powerful witch who refuses to use her power, preferring to blend in with the human world, but that all ends when she 'draws' a coveted manuscript to her by accident. We have a powerful vampire who at first only wants the manuscript, then wants the witch herself. We have daemons--they are the eccentrics of the world, the savants.

And this is only the first book in a series. Wish I'd've known that when I picked it up.

The Great Upheaval : America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800, by Jay Winik (on CD)

Long, somewhat repetitive, but definitely thought-provoking and informative.

Turncoat, by Aaron Elkins

Not one of the series titles, this one is about the impact of World War II on the French, and takes place in the mid-1960s. Pretty good mystery.

Skeleton Dance, by Aaron Elkins

Another in the series about Gideon Oliver. This time he's in France working on a book on weird forensic finds and hoaxes and is asked by the local police to look into a skeleton they have just uncovered. Skeletons in caves are relatively common in the area--it's where Cro-Magnon was first found--but this one is a little too recent and a little too complicated for the comfort of the police.

Of course, within hours of his first look at the case, he is whacked over the head and the skeleton in question is stolen. Then the head of the local institute, under whose aegis Gideon is visiting, is found with his head bashed in rather more severely.

As usual, Gideon finds small clues that lead to lots more questions about just whose skeleton was in the cave, and just how the former director (the one before the recently dead one) died. Everyone has thought he died in a plane crash, or rather they've thought he crashed his plane on purpose. Now people are wondering if that was just a convenient ruse.

Good, typical fare. Nothing outstanding, but lots of clever banter and some interesting factoids about the caves near Lascaux and the whole Paleolithic era discoveries.