{"id":33056,"date":"2018-08-17T06:00:07","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=33056"},"modified":"2018-08-10T10:19:17","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T15:19:17","slug":"a-brief-history-of-montmaray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/a-brief-history-of-montmaray\/","title":{"rendered":"A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It turns out there’s a cult following of Michelle Cooper’s Montmaray Journals series.\u00a0 Now, I’m one of them.\u00a0 The audio version of\u00a0 A Brief History of Montmaray<\/strong><\/em><\/a> took me across several states (and back).\u00a0 Sometimes I was so engrossed that I didn’t notice how low the gas gauge was – a lack of attention that can be dangerous on some stretches of South Dakota highway.<\/p>\n

It’s written as the secret diary of (Princess) Sophie FitzOsborne,\u00a0 one of the ruling family of the\u00a0 island kingdom of Montmaray.<\/p>\n

Sophie’s view of herself, and\u00a0 her\u00a0 family\u00a0 evolves as she learns more of the tragedies surrounding her family’s history, including her aunt’s disappearance. The cast of characters include her very eccentric Uncle John (the king), her siblings and cousin – all\u00a0 with their own obsessions and quirks. There’s a secret language that the cousins have developed – she encodes parts of her diary in this language, in case the book falls in the wrong hands. There are also secret tunnels, the possibility that the crumbling castle may have connections to the Holy Grail, a jeweled egg gifted by the Romanovs, and perilous rescues and invasions by sea and air.<\/p>\n

It is 1936, and world events are overtaking the seclusion of the tiny country in the waters off the coasts of France and Spain,\u00a0 in the Bay of Biscay. The remaining FitzOsbornes are very aware of the political turmoil in Europe, especially the Spanish Civil War and rising fascism in Germany.\u00a0 German soldiers land on the shores of Montmaray one day, as part of the historical\/archaeological research wing of the Nazis, and life is never the same again.<\/p>\n

At the end of the first volume, there are still many mysteries to be solved.\u00a0 I can’t wait to hear more from this charmingly eccentric family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It turns out there’s a cult following of Michelle Cooper’s Montmaray Journals series.\u00a0 Now, I’m one of them.\u00a0 The audio version of\u00a0 A Brief History of Montmaray took me across several states (and back).\u00a0 Sometimes I was so engrossed that I didn’t notice how low the gas gauge was –[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[361,1,8],"tags":[4594,4595,476,4593],"class_list":["post-33056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-books","category-reference","category-staff-picks","tag-between-the-wars","tag-eccentric-rulers","tag-family-drama","tag-imaginary-country"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-8Ba","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33056"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33081,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33056\/revisions\/33081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}