I am a huge fan of the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Drums of Autumn and the books following it take place in Cross Creek, North Carolina where Jamie and Claire build a homestead, encounter Flora MacDonald and witness the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge. My brother is stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, NC which is present day Cross Creek and I was there visiting last week. While I was visiting, we went to the Museum of the Cape Fear which hosts a pretty neat display about the Scottish Highlanders in Fayetteville as well as about Flora MacDonald and the beginning of the Revolutionary War in North Carolina. We also drove past the site where Flora MacDonald College once stood (it has since been incorporated into another private college). When I pointed out the sign, my brother asked "Who the heck is Flora MacDonald?!" and I had a total nerd moment explaining who she was and how cool it was to see where some of my favorite books were set. We didn't make it to the site of the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge because the weather was bad but all in all it was a great trip!
Synopsis: Distant Signs is an intimate portrait of two families spanning three generations amidst turbulent political change, behind and beyond the Berlin Wall. In 1960s East Germany, Margret, a professor’s daughter from the city, meets and marries Hans, from a small village in Thuringia. The couple struggle to contend with their different backgrounds, and the emotional scars they bear from childhood in the aftermath of war. As East German history gradually unravels, with collision of the personal and political, their two families’ hidden truths are quietly revealed. An exquisitely written novel with strongly etched characters that stay with you long after the book is finished and an authentic portrayal of family life behind the iron curtain based on personal experience of the author who is East German and was 16 years old at the fall of the Berlin Wall. Why do families repeat destructive patterns of behaviour across generations? Should the personal take precedence over...
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