Balkan Echo

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When Mrs. PG spends a lot of extra time at her computer, PG wonders.

  • Has Mrs. PG found a pen pal? (or whatever an email version of a pen pal is called when no actual pen is involved)
  • Has PG done something that has sent Mrs. PG to a distant divorce lawyer who needs a lot of information?
    • Dirty socks on the floor?
    • Forgot to floss?
    • Was there an anniversary last week?
    • Neglected to feed the dog? (Wait, we don’t have a dog.)
  • Has Mrs. PG become addicted to Super Smash Bros?
  • New book?

PG is happy (and thankful) to announce that Mrs. PG has just released Balkan Echo, a romantic suspense novel.

What is Balkan Echo about?

PG is a parser by nature.

Balkan

According to The Encyclopedia Britannica:

Balkans, also called Balkan Peninsula, easternmost of Europe’s three great southern peninsulas. There is not universal agreement on the region’s components.

. . . .

Some define the region in cultural and historical terms and others geographically, though there are even different interpretations among historians and geographers.

. . . .

Moreover, for some observers, the term “Balkans” is freighted with negative connotations associated with the region’s history of ethnic divisiveness and political upheaval.

Moving forward, PG searched for wise sayings about Balkans.

~ I love the combination of the words ‘spies’ and ‘Balkans.’ It’s like meat and potatoes.  – Alan Furst

~ There a lot of occasions when Albanians cause trouble, but then we are also very nice people. People sometimes forget that there are good people from the Balkans as well.  – Granit Xhaka

~ I will always fight for peace. But, unfortunately, it is war that drives us forward. It is war that makes the major turns. It makes Wall Street function; it makes all the bastards in the Balkans function. – Emir Kusturica

~ My father, a Russian translator, wanted to distinguish me by calling me Misha, the Russian diminutive of his name, Michael. My name and work as a writer specialising in the Balkans has created a myth that I have Slavic connections, but actually I am British.  – Misha Glenny

So there you have it! Everybody understands about Balkan!

(PG has to admit that he loves the name, Granit Xhaka, but he digresses.)

Echo

PG was inclined to be a bit more peremptory about Echo, but since it is half of the title of Mrs. PG’s book, he will not give it short shrift or even medium shrift.

When PG was young, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy were old (maybe dead), but PG was struck when he heard a duet they sang together on one of the three channels then available on television. It sounded to him as if they were trying to mimic echos as they called back and forth to each other.

Now, of course, in PG’s mind, these were echos topped with more than a little artistic license, because no one would expect an echo of Jeannette would sound like Nelson and vice versa.

As a grown sophisticate, PG would never mistake a call and response musical structure for an echo and besides, Mrs. PG didn’t write “Balkan Call and Response,” so he will splash some additional artistic license on Indian Love Song in order to explicate the second word in the title of her book – Echo.

.

.

There you are. PG hopes you now have a clear mental image about the topic and attractions of Mrs. PG’s book, Balkan Echo — Jeanette MacDonald & Nelson Eddy with Kalashnikovs.

Both of the PG’s would be pleased if you would consider buying a copy of Mrs. PG’s latest creation.

 

8 thoughts on “Balkan Echo”

  1. PG, as your post left me with no idea what the book is about – not a surprise of course – I clicked on the buy link which took me to the Amazon UK book page where I “looked inside”.

    I regret to report that this reads as if the wrong file has been loaded as it includes some text in red which looks like a proofreader’s comments. They also appeared when I selected the preview link in your post.

  2. I went up to Amazon and noted that in her WOOT-TV series, both of the first two books are listed as the second book in the series.

    Does DD Vandagriff by any chance, self-publish? If not, a word should be said to her publisher…

    Feel free not to post this to the list.

    • Having looked a bit further, it is my opinion that “Balkan Echo” is a proof with corrections in red, and “Breaking News” is the final text of “Balkan Echo”.

      Looks to me that someone uploaded the final file for “Balkan Echo” to the wrong place and overwrote the file for “Breaking News”.

      Hope this helps.

      Tim

  3. This is most puzzling. Thank you so much for your comments to alert us to the situation. Hopefully all the books I sold today are not affected. What a disaster. Amazon has some explaining to do.

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