My favorite thing about G.G. Vandagriff’s ‘The Hidden Branch’ is that it doesn’t try to take itself too seriously. The character of Briggie is as fun as her name sounds. She’s a senior lady who lands in jail more than once, yet none of her friends seem nonplussed by the news. And even though the story is whimsical at times, there is some serious action and intrigue. There are plenty of characters, which means plenty of suspects and plenty of reasons to keep turning pages. If you read my review of ‘Last Waltz’ you know that I think Vandagriff is one of the best authors around. ‘The Hidden Branch’ shows that she’s able to adapt to multiple genres with amazing skill.

Do you want a fun read with lots of intrigue that has sleuthing by two wonderful main characters who would rival Agatha Christie’s Poirot? Well I’ve found it in G.G. Vandagriff’s book The Hidden Branch.

This book is just plain fun! Not only does the mystery of the novel twist and turn, but so does your heart as you follow the characters and worry over them. My heart sank when Charles, Alex’s fiancé, has to leave to go to his dying mother. Though I hadn’t read the previous book in the series, which showed the struggle of these two lovebirds getting together, that didn’t stop me from rooting for them to maintain their love. (I’m going to have to read the other books in the series now. Thanks, G.G.) You’ll have to read The Hidden Branch to find out if Charles comes back, and if Alex’s love for him will survive as she works with Briggie to solve this murder mystery.
Grab a warm blanket, a cup of cocoa, and curl up on the couch for this delightful tale.

How can one book be so many contradictory things? A book about some fairly famous people by Anne Bradshaw on Family Nights. You will laugh out loud at some of the entries, find some great ideas to spice things up at your house, stop feeling guilty about your FHE "failures," and be inspired by the long-term effects of living with this commandment.

Anne is seriously connected with a lot of people, all of whom it seems have a story to share on this topic. It would make a perfect gift, especially for families with teen-agers or children who won’t stay still!

The only beef I have with the book is not Anne’s fault. I think CFI should have given her a better cover. It must have been a hard choice, but I don’t think a cartoon superhero does justice to the scope of the book. So don’t let the cover scare you away. Read a few of the entries and you will know you have to have this book!

By G.G. Vandagriff

Once again, Jennie Hansen proves herself to be the LDS mistress of the plot. Plots seem to flow from her endlessly and seamlessly. One imagines her just going into a semi-zen state and having the perfect plot, twists and all emerge from her computer. Shudder is a perfect example, with the complex relationships that reign over Boise politics detailed and tangled. This is a book for those who enjoyed a fast-paced read.

But it is also something more. Jennie has put her whole heart into this book which is also about spousal abuse. Her understanding of the abuse, its roots and its course through a relationship ring completely true. I’m sure she hopes that her book will sing a warning bell to those in potentially abusive relationships by illustrating the escalating stages. Hopefully, it will also enable those in such relationships to realize they are not alone, not to blame, and that help is available.

I would have liked to see a little more character development which could be because I favor character development over straight action. Also in a few places the dialogue sounded like a pre-recorded speech.

However, this book will be an exciting addition to the collections of her fans, of whom she has many!

Have had such a wonderful time watching conference.  My heart is full.  I have received many impressions of things that I need to do.  I am so grateful to all my friends and fans with whom I share my writing world.  It is indeed a blessing that at this time in my life when my body is beginning to show signs of wear and tear, that the Lord sustains me in a newly found career as a writer.  After 25 years of illness, it is wonderful to feel fruitful and full of purpose and ideas.

I have been digging down in The Only Bright Thing, my latest literary endeavor, trying to follow my product director’s advice to make it "even better than Waltz."  What I have found has surprised and confounded me.  I have had to miss my deadline in order to make it the book I want to be.  I hope, when finished, that it will be a wonderful story of different kinds of love and different kinds of marriages, as Waltz was.

We leave for Florence the day after tomorrow and I can scarcely believe it.  It has been forty years since I have been there, and David has never been.  We look forward to relaxing for two weeks, taking in all the local color as research for the first volume of my Crazy Ladies of Oakwood series which is slated to begin in 2011. 

I have also lately been rethinking my decision not to provide a sequel to Waltz.  There has been such an outcry that I am considering it.  Check out the wonderful new review of Waltz on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

When next I write, it will be from Italy!

The Hidden Branch is being launched as I write this.  It has been in the stores for about a week, and already has a review from my great fan, Britt!  You can read it at http://bookhabitue.blogspot.com.

The winner in our contest is:

Susan Winterton from Chandler, AZ.   She will receive the entire set of Alex and Briggie books as well as the same gift package of memorabilia that all the other contestants will receive.

I will be signing all my books at the Layton Hills Mall, Layton, Utah on Saturday, the 26th of September, as well as on Ladies’ Night at the University Mall in Orem, Utah.  (Good to have some signings near home for a change).

After conference, my husband and I will be flying to Florence to research my first book in my new series: The Crazy Ladies of Oakwood, Part One: The Escapade.  I am hoping this will be balm for all of you who are mourning the loss of Alex and Briggie.  There will be four new eccentric heroines, exotic places, and complications galore.

After writing the book review of The Last Waltz, (see last post) Margaret decided to interview me.  The short interview follows:

Jun 29, 2009, Interview with The Last Waltz author  G.G.Vandagriff http://www.historicalnovels.info/historical-novels-blog.html

It’s a pleasure to have historical novelist G.G. Vandagriff visiting the blog today. G.G. is the author of The Last Waltz, about a Viennese woman and her search for love, beginning on the eve of the First World War and ending with a dramatic escape during the Nazi takeover of Austria during World War II. She has also written a contemporary mystery series featuring a sleuth who is a genealogist. Welcome, G.G.!

Before reading The Last Waltz, I didn’t realize how different the Austrian experience was from the German experience of the two world wars. Did your research turn up anything that surprised you?

I actually studied the history and politics of Austria while I was living there. My professors were Austrians. I didn’t know their story either. It is so full of pathos, I felt it needed to be told. I really got the impression that the Austrians have been having an identity crisis ever since they lost their empire. I came to know that they are very distinct from the Germans. Germany only came together as a nation in the late 19th century. Austria had been an empire for over 500 years. Their national culture is far more cosmopolitan and deeply ingrained. At the time of WWI, Germany was still culturally diverse – a group of nation-states.

Are any of the fictional main characters in your book inspired by real people?

The characters grew in my mind over a period of thirty-three years. To me, they seem very real, however they are totally imaginary. Their identities were inspired by the political factions they represented, but they ceased to be symbolic to me and became real somewhere along the way. For them to be more than superficial, I had to live with them daily for many years. I am sure even the men have something of me in them!

What was it like to turn to a serious historical novel after writing a mystery series?

Actually, the mysteries were a "filler" until the serious novel could be worked out. I needed real life tragedy and personal victories in the face of opposition that I didn’t have when I began the novel at age twenty-seven. And I knew it. I also had to learn that an epic like this one had to have more than one point of view. I had to develop my male characters fully. Once I added scenes from their points of view, the novel came alive.

Thanks, G.G. Your novel certainly reflects your many years of living with these characters and their setting. Readers may be interested in our review of The Last Waltz, which is both a romantic love story and a fascinating look at Austria during and between the world wars.

http://www.historicalnovels.info/Last-Waltz.html

The Last Waltz

by G.G. Vandagriff

Reviewed by Margaret Donsbach

At nineteen, Amalia, the fictional Viennese heroine of The Last Waltz, feels an almost instinctive dread of war. In 1913, with most Austrians blissfully unaware of World War I looming on the horizon, her fiancé, a gifted German violinist, has been studying music in Vienna. Infected by the martial spirit rising in Germany, he announces his eagerness to follow in his Prussian father’s footsteps and prove himself as a soldier.

Amalia’s family, descended from aristocracy and eager to climb back up the social rungs, is intent on preserving standards of propriety and displays of wealth that are already becoming outmoded. But her beloved Uncle Lorenz, a socialist who lives in near-poverty so he can support his favorite humanitarian projects, has a gentler, yet stronger influence on her character.

Amalia hates her titled fiancé’s obvious delight at the prospect of war, but the thought of breaking their engagement appalls her. He is not, however, her only admirer. A magnetic Polish doctor whose attraction to women comes second to his yearning for a free, democratic Poland, as well as a kind-hearted aristocratic friend of her Uncle Lorenz both take an interest in her, leading to numerous complications and wrenching dilemmas of the heart.

While the focus of The Last Waltz stays firmly on Amalia and her personal life, the two world wars have as searing an effect on her as they do on other Europeans of her time. The novel offers a perceptive and fascinating introduction to the politics of pre-WWII Austria, a setting that has been neglected amid the outpouring of novels about Nazi Germany. In many ways, the Austrian setting is far more interesting, as the artistic Viennese society gradually splinters into groups that cannot neatly be classified into pro-Nazi or anti-Nazi. The dissention within Austria paves the way for a German takeover and Amalia’s dramatic, hair’s-breadth escape attempt.

The Last Waltz is a good choice for readers looking for a moving, well-written love story without explicit sex. (2009, 591 pages)

More about The Last Waltz at Powell’s Books

Reviewed by Jaymie Reynolds

It is December of 1913 in Vienna and Amalia Faulhaber is surrounded by the
whirlwind that is the life of a nineteen-year-old socialite. She is
comfortable and confident in her wealth, her heritage, and most of all, in
her engagement to the Prussian baron, Eberhard von Waldburg. All this comes
crashing to a halt the day that her fiance informs her that their engagement
is off since he is returning to Prussia to fight in what he is sure will be
a glorious war.

In her distress upon hearing her former fiance’s plans, Amalia wanders
aimlessly and finally ends up in a small coffee house where she meets the
handsome but flippant Andrzej. Although she does not yet know it, her life
will be interwoven with his in the long, hard years to come. During this
same time period, Amalia is introduced to the Austrian Baron, Rudolf von
Schoenenburg.

As Amalia comes to know these three very different men, she is forced to
choose between them and the varying futures that each will offer her. Adding
to the chaos surrounding her, Amalia’s beloved Uncle dies, leaving her in
charge of his many charities and the funds he runs them with. Round out the
picture with the two World Wars that her story is sandwiched between and you
have a rough idea of the background for Amalia’s life. Throughout her story,
it is often sheer grit that pulls her through.

G.G. Vandagriff completes her story using vivid word pictures. Once the
reader adjusts to the richness of her descriptions, the story of The Last
Waltz draws the reader in. This book is a very rapid read but requires an
investment of some time due to its length. Ms. Vandagriff’s latest offering
is very appropriately titled. Like the waltz, the storyline picks the
readers up and twirls them from plot twist to plot twist in what is, at
times, almost a dizzying rate of speed.

Although the tenor of The Last Waltz is somewhat different than this
author’s previous books, it does have one trait similar to the author’s
previous writings. For those readers who like to “cheat” by peeking at the
end of the book, it is almost a guarantee that they will put two and two
together and come up with nine. With many authors, one can skim through the
final pages of a book and sum up a story. One thing that seems to be common
throughout Ms. Vandagriff’s books is her ability to weave so many elements
so tightly that one cannot arrive at the proper conclusions without actually
reading her books from cover to cover.

The Last Waltz illustrates the value of so many different kinds of
love…companionship, empathetic love, protective and secure love, and of
course, that vibrant first love. This book is not necessarily the happily
ever after type of love story that causes teen hearts to flutter. Although
the sheer determination of the heroine makes one feel that the endings
scattered throughout this book are not necessarily tragic, this is truly a
romance more of the star struck lover variety.

This book is one that mothers and daughters alike may enjoy. It is not
frilly as many romances can be. This opens the door for male readers to find
enjoyment in this book as well. While teenagers might enjoy this book, they
also may not have the life experience necessary to find true understanding
of the characters and their choices.

The plot line of this book is set mainly in Vienna, Austria and begins at
nearly the same time as the first World War. It encompasses World War I and
the beginnings of World War II. The historical setting of this book serves
to show the clash in cultures, views, and even individual personalities.
This masterful story has an ending that does leave it open to a sequel.
Nonetheless, the author does a good job of pulling in all the loose ends to
give readers the closure that is necessary in a good book. In the end, The
Last Waltz is well worth the time that one will put into the dance.