Not a review but an announcement: A Far Better Rest is going to be reissued on trade paperback and for Kindle and other e-readers sometime during the next year, if all goes as projected -- possibly to coincide with the release (fall 2010?) of the next Aristide Ravel mystery.

Susanne
(author)

Unrequited love, redemption, politics and sex rolled into one terrific book!

I finished reading [A Far Better Rest] a day or so ago. It is an excellent "stand alone" book, but it is also the fictional back-story to [ A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens] It both follows and tells of the life of Carton during the period between when he was a school boy in a Paris boy's school with his mirror image friend, Darney, and the dreadful, stark, closing days of the French Revolution.

Brilliant. Inventive. Believable, to the degree that it brings the sense of characters, time and place completely to life. I really care about these players and what is happening in France during this time period as put forth by Ms. Alleyn.

If you love good writing and are interested in a more in depth history of how the revolution in France unfolded and the untold numbers who were subsequently guillotened as enemies of the Republic, then this is one book you will want to peruse and enjoy within its pages the story of star crossed lovers, politics, publishing, loss and betrayal in the process.

I felt that it would not be a tremendous leap for this to be written about present day irrationality in the arena of politics and personalities. Scary, what is done in the name of patriotism, sometimes, when there seems to be no brains and thinking behind the frenzy of feelings of hatred and blood-thirsty revenge.

Well worth your time and attention. Mission accomplished by the author with this stunning work of fiction. Five stars. It would be a marvelous screenplay given the proper treatment and a good director, producer and cast. (Masterpiece Theater, BBC, Merchant/Ivory quality film). Suspense abounds even though you know the story and the ending having already read Dicken's classic. A Far Better Rest is a "far better book", IMHO. ( )