Jeanne Blasberg

Jeanne Blasberg

About

A graduate of Smith College, Jeanne began her career in finance, making stops on Wall Street, Macy’s and eventually Harvard Business School where she wrote case studies and business articles. In order to nurture her creative impulses, Jeanne turned to memoir writing and later fiction.  An only child who’s kept a journal all her life, Jeanne is a voracious observer of human nature.  Eden (SWP, May ’17) is her debut novel.  She is on the Board of Directors and is an avid student at Grub Street where she is hard at work on her next book.  She and her husband split their time between Boston and Westerly, RI and have three grown children.  When she’s not writing, Jeanne can be found playing squash, skiing, or taking in the sunset over Little Narragansett Bay.  Learn more at www.jeanneblasberg.com

A King Under Siege: Book One of The Plantagenet Legacy

A King Under Siege: Book One of The Plantagenet Legacy

0.0
0 ratings

Description

<p>Richard II found himself under siege not once, but twice in his minority. Crowned king at age ten, he was only fourteen when the Peasants' Revolt terrorized London. But he proved himself every bit the Plantagenet successor, facing Wat Tyler and the rebels when all seemed lost. Alas, his triumph was short-lived, and for the next ten years he struggled to assert himself against his uncles and increasingly hostile nobles. Just like in the days of his great-grandfather Edward II, vengeful magnates strove to separate him from his friends and advisors, and even threatened to depose him if he refused to do their bidding. The Lords Appellant, as they came to be known, purged the royal household with the help of the Merciless Parliament. They murdered his closest allies, leaving the King alone and defenseless. He would never forget his humiliation at the hands of his subjects. Richard's inability to protect his adherents would haunt him for the rest of his life, and he vowed that next time, retribution would be his.</p>

Story Behind The Book

A modern day creation story, Eden appeals to a cross section of ages as it portrays the wounds a family passes down through the generations. While Eden is one woman's story, it echoes four women's stories, and is, at the same time, all women' story, weaving the past and the present together with both concise prose and broad, lyrical strokes.

Reviews

<blockquote style="padding:0px;background-color:rgb(246,246,246);border:none rgb(240,78,55);font-size:16px;line-height:1.6;font-family:Raleway;color:rgb(116,116,116);font-style:italic;margin:0px;"><q style="margin-bottom:0px;background-color:rgb(196,230,229);color:rgb(51,51,51);letter-spacing:0px;line-height:22px;padding:25px;"><span style="font-style:normal;">Eden</span> is not just another farewell-to-the-summer-house novel, but instead a masterfully interwoven family saga with indelible characters, unforgettable stories, and true pathos. Most impressive, there’s not an ounce of fat on this excellent book.</q></blockquote> <div class="author" style="padding:12px 0px 0px;line-height:normal;font-family:Raleway;font-size:16px;color:rgb(51,51,51);"><span class="company-name" style="vertical-align:middle;"><strong>Anita Shreve</strong>, <span>NYT best selling author of <em>The Pilot's Wife and The Stars are Fire</em></span></span></div> <div class="author" style="padding:12px 0px 0px;line-height:normal;font-family:Raleway;font-size:16px;color:rgb(51,51,51);"> <blockquote style="padding:0px;background-color:rgb(246,246,246);border:none rgb(240,78,55);font-size:16px;line-height:1.6;font-family:Raleway;color:rgb(116,116,116);font-style:italic;margin:0px;"><q style="margin-bottom:0px;background-color:rgb(196,230,229);color:rgb(51,51,51);letter-spacing:0px;line-height:22px;padding:25px;"><span style="margin-bottom:0px;font-style:normal;">Eden</span> is a heartbreaking novel about the wounds that are passed down through generations. Blasberg’s voice is strong and clear, and her characters are so real—with their ambitions and their weaknesses, their good intentions and their resentments—that no reader is likely to forget them. </q></blockquote> <div class="author" style="padding:12px 0px 0px;line-height:normal;font-family:Raleway;font-size:16px;color:rgb(51,51,51);"><span class="company-name" style="vertical-align:middle;"><strong>Ivy Pochoda</strong>, <span>author of <em>Visitation Street</em></span></span></div> <div class="author" style="padding:12px 0px 0px;line-height:normal;font-family:Raleway;font-size:16px;color:rgb(51,51,51);"> <blockquote style="padding:0px;background-color:rgb(246,246,246);border:none rgb(240,78,55);font-size:16px;line-height:1.6;font-family:Raleway;color:rgb(116,116,116);font-style:italic;margin:0px;"><q style="margin-bottom:0px;background-color:rgb(196,230,229);color:rgb(51,51,51);letter-spacing:0px;line-height:22px;padding:25px;">Jeanne Blasberg’s brilliant first novel conjures a family home so poignantly that I feel as if I’ve returned there every summer of my life. In <span style="margin-bottom:0px;font-style:normal;">Eden</span>, Blasberg invites us into the fearsome echo chamber of a dysfunctional family, and shows us—in unsparing, crystalline prose—how the members of such a family can begin to make their way into the light.</q></blockquote> <div class="author" style="padding:12px 0px 0px;line-height:normal;font-family:Raleway;font-size:16px;color:rgb(51,51,51);"><span class="company-name" style="vertical-align:middle;"><strong>Louisa Hall</strong>, <span>author of <em>Speak</em> and <em>The Carriage House</em></span></span></div> </div> <blockquote style="padding:0px;background-color:rgb(246,246,246);border:none rgb(240,78,55);font-size:16px;line-height:1.6;font-family:Raleway;color:rgb(116,116,116);font-style:italic;margin:0px;"><q style="margin-bottom:0px;background-color:rgb(196,230,229);color:rgb(51,51,51);letter-spacing:0px;line-height:22px;padding:25px;">Jeanne Blasberg’s touching debut novel, <span style="margin-bottom:0px;font-style:normal;">Eden</span>, tells the story of Becca Meister Fitzpatrick, a family matriarch about to disclose a difficult secret over the Fourth of July weekend, 2000. As Blasberg’s clear, affecting prose moves across time to tell Becca’s story, the author also tells the story – heartbreaking, but ultimately hopeful – of a changing 20th century America.</q></blockquote> <div class="author" style="padding:12px 0px 0px;line-height:normal;font-family:Raleway;font-size:16px;color:rgb(51,51,51);"><span class="company-name" style="vertical-align:middle;"><strong>Lisa Borders</strong>, <span>author of <em>The Fifty-First State and Cloud Cuckoo Land</em></span></span></div> <div class="author" style="padding:12px 0px 0px;line-height:normal;font-family:Raleway;font-size:16px;color:rgb(51,51,51);"> <blockquote style="padding:0px;background-color:rgb(246,246,246);border:none rgb(240,78,55);font-size:16px;line-height:1.6;font-family:Raleway;color:rgb(116,116,116);font-style:italic;margin:0px;"><q style="margin-bottom:0px;background-color:rgb(196,230,229);color:rgb(51,51,51);letter-spacing:0px;line-height:22px;padding:25px;">With beautiful, big-hearted brush strokes, Blasberg seamlessly shifts between past and present, delivering a powerful and poignant family drama. As present-day challenges collide with long-buried secrets in the heat of a summer reunion, a family in crisis learns to accept truths, however uncomfortable, and how to navigate the closing doors, and new gifts, that change brings. </q></blockquote> <div class="author" style="padding:12px 0px 0px;line-height:normal;font-family:Raleway;font-size:16px;color:rgb(51,51,51);"> <p><span class="company-name" style="vertical-align:middle;"><strong>Sophie Powell</strong>, <span>author of <em>The Mushroom Man</em></span></span></p> <p><span class="company-name" style="vertical-align:middle;"><span><em><span style="letter-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(196,230,229);">In this wonderful debut, Blasberg masterfully intertwines the stories of four generations of women, all forced to make difficult choices as mothers— first in the face of strict societal norms, and ultimately, within the expectations of a family trying to live up to the promise of a place called Eden. I loved it from beginning to end.</span></em></span></span></p> <div class="author" style="padding:12px 0px 0px;line-height:normal;font-style:normal;"><span class="company-name" style="vertical-align:middle;"><span><em><span class="company-name" style="vertical-align:middle;"><strong>Katherine Sherbrooke</strong>, <span>author of <em>Finding Home<em> and <em>Fill the Sky</em></em></em></span></span></em></span></span></div> </div> </div> </div>