Status Updates From The Longest Winter

You can definitely tell a man wrote this, because of they way he writes the female characters as extremely dim witted and without any type of basic common sense, when their status and intelligence has been defined as higher intelligence & likely educated due to their background from the start of the story.

This a slow read…. I’m trudging through it! Praying it picks up by page 100…

This shipped all the way over from the UK hopefully it was worth the trip.

Ants! And War, hideous, cruel war.

"So far it's just another beautiful summer, but all that can change."

Hate was impossible to sustain and the things Governments and generals said to whip it up were an embarrassment to most soldiers.

...we're going to lose them all, aren't we? There's be no men left in the end. Only Richthofen.

When Austria goes to war with Serbia, Russia will go to war with Austria. Germany will fight in support of Austria. France will fight in support of Russia. Then the whole of Europe will go up in flames.

And what will become of Sophie and James? *sniff*

It was a day for the old as well as the young, with Europe sunning in the brilliance of its empires and kingdoms, the era brave with the majesty of kings and princes, and Queen Alexandra still its inspiration and Kaiser Wilhelm its proud, ceremonial mouthpiece.

Well, if I must be stuck at the office with nothing to do on a Friday afternoon, at least I have my book and no chiefs looking over my shoulder :p

It was a mistake that was to cost Austria her Empire and Europe over eight million lives.

Sarajevo, June 28, 1915. Sunshine, hunting, colour,crowds and the Archduke Ferdinand.

Dun dun dun dun.

My, that was a nail biting rescue. James, you are some hero.

What a bright, brave pair you are, I love you both. One day we'll climb a mountain together, all three of us, and stand on top of the world.

If there was glory to come out of the assassination of the Archduke, Ferenec intended that glory to be his.

Franz Ferdinand must go before he grew a halo, while there were still Bosnians who believed he had horns.

Motorcars were only a fad, of course. They would never last.

Vienna, 1914.

Dun dun dun dun.

There, you see, Ive managed to bring you some wine today. It wont bring any missing legs back...but it will help you sing some sorry songs...Look at me. Did you ever see anything sorrier? But misery, you know, is the most honest emotion of all. I'm so miserable myself I'm the most honest woman in Vienna..

Life with its challenge, its excitements and its beautiful promise stopped for Sophie in that station. Out of high summer had come impossible war......it froze her anguished love.

on the way to Sarajevo...hoping to circumvent an assassination....

Bosnian flies spent the whole summer lying in wait for picnics.