The Blue Bicycle

Lea, second eldest daughter of Pierre Delmas, the owner of the Montillac winery, falls in love with Laurent d'Argilat, who is engaged to her cousin, Camille

"The little savage from Montillac" is what her suave lover Francois calls Lea, passionate heroine of this frankly lush, romantic novel of France during the war years 19391942. Daughter of a rich wine grower in Bordeaux, Lea sees her adored childhood sweetheart, Laurent, married to his cousin, namby-pamby Camille. Lea has lovers but never stops carrying the torch for Laurent, while tending pregnant Camille during Laurent's service at the front, holding down the family estate of Montillac, where Germans are billeted, and cycling through occupied checkpoints with messages for the Resistance. Deforges, a bestselling writer in France, gives us moving scenes of civilian panic and carnage and glimpses of Paris high life enjoyed by collaborators and black-marketeers. Radio broadcasts by the still unknown de Gaulle, and defeatist Petainhead of the Vichy puppet regimefire French patriotism and keep the underground going. Plenty of entertainment here, and echoes of Gone with the Wind, though it's hard to tell what lusty Lea sees in Laurent. Book two of this trilogy will come next year. 100,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This book has been compared to Gone with the Wind. It is that classic, modernized to World War II, with a French accent. In the first chapters the reader laughs to recognize people and plot elements created by Margaret Mitchell: the rebuff of Lea/Scarlett by Laurant/Ashley, his marriage to Camille/Melanie, the flight from burning Paris/Atlanta aided by Francois/Rhett. Most interesting is where the scene dictates such changes that Mitchell cannot be copied, and Deforges must use her own imagination. The "blue bicycle" is only a means of transportation until the end, when its function in smuggling letters between free and occupied France is revealed. The premise would have been satisfying without imitation, but the writing is juvenile and the book disappointing. Andrea Lee Shuey, Dallas P.L.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.