The Virgin Blue | 
 enlarge | Author: Tracy Chevalier
Publisher: Highbridge Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $34.95
Buy New: $8.57
You Save: $26.38 (75%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  155 reviews
Sales Rank: 792945
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 8
Pages: 45
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 5.8 x 5.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 1565116844
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781565116849
ASIN: 1565116844
Publication Date: February 1, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new, in original shrinkwrap. Remainder mark. Next day shipping w tracking #
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Book Description
Meet Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin - two women born centuries apart, yet bound by a fateful family legacy. When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start a family of her own. Village life turns out to be less idyllic than she expected, however, and a peculiar dream of the color blue propels her on a quest to uncover her family's French ancestry. As the novel unfolds - alternating between Ella's story and that of Isabelle du Moulin four hundred years earlier - a common thread emerges that unexpectedly links the two women. Part detective story, part historical fiction, The Virgin Blue is a novel of passion and intrigue that compels readers to the very last page.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 150 more reviews...
 Deeply Disturbing - Do Not Recommend May 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
No doubt Ms. Chevalier highlights a significant time of religious intolerance, but the tale is disturbing on so many deep levels, I am extremely sorry I read it. I am still trying to erase my memories of this novel and I won't be taking a chance on any other Chevalier material. (I previously read Girl with a Pearl Earring and thought it was interesting.)
 A great debut novel April 26, 2008
I quite like Tracy Chevalier's books, although I believe she has sort of lost her touch with her two most recent novels, The Lady and the Unicorn and Burning Bright. "The Virgin Blue" is her debut novel, and while it also deals with a part of European history, the main motive of all Chevalier's books, displacement, is most evident here. It alternates between two stories, one about Isabelle de Moulin, a young protestant woman dealing with the hardships of life in 1572 France, and a modern-day one about Ella Turner, an American who has recently moved to France with her husband and who starts tracing her family history out of boredom.
The novel is both fun and difficult to read, as it requires some knowledge about the Huguenots and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, but there is a historical note at the end of the book that explains it all and should be read first. The two women are very well-written characters, although at times too two-dimensional - irregardless, their stories are engaging, and the novel is a real page-turner.
Although not quite as good as Chevalier's smash hit Girl with a Pearl Earring, Deluxe Edition, or her best novel, Falling Angels, "The Virgin Blue" is good historical fiction - far-fetched, engaging and sexy, bordering on erotic.
Burning Bright March 15, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this book, Burning Bright, with great anticipation, after I read and liked her previous 2 books, Girl with a Perl Earring, and The Lady with the Unicorn. I am most disappointed by this effort. Perhaps, I am thinking, it is not Tracy Chevalier's writing after all? The above mentioned two novels were magical, the language wonderful, while this one is flat, forced, boring, and so on. I tried to read on valiantly but eventually gave up at page 46. An old professor of my said long ago: "Who does not speak Arabic, should not speak Arabic".
 Hard to get into February 13, 2008
Hard to get past the first few chapters and I have put it down and cant seem to pick it back up yet. Maybe later I will be able to get into it. Th information about the book is very interesting but the writing is not very fluent.
Disappointing January 10, 2008
Having enjoyed several of Chevalier's books about art, I had expected more from this author. The two story lines were improbable, the characters two dimensional, the main character shallow and irritating, descriptions of place lacking depth. It would have been a far better story if she had simply focused on the Huguenots, instead of trying to tie together intensely personal experiences between two women who were centuries apart.
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