FIVE STAR FIRST EDITION ROMANCE NEWS

All Through the Night by Barrington King
0-7862-3287-0, Historical Romance, $25.95, Hardcover, 367 est. pages
Publication Date: June, 2001

News Release

In August, 1939, Europe is poised on the brink of war and Elizabeth Vail on the brink of life. The ward of immensely rich Eustace Warden, she has just graduated from college and is working as a social secretary for Eustace's imperious sister, Leonore, on the family's Virginia estate.

In a single morning, Leonore decides to go to Europe despite the threat of war; her daughter, Paula, is expelled from Vassar; Eustace's son Peter, attached to the American Embassy in Paris, writes that he is engaged to a Polish princess; and two young men show up unannounced: Marc d'Aubigny, a right-wing French aristocrat, and his friend Jean-Luc Cabanasse, a left-wing Catalan journalist. The lives of six young people are about to be meshed in the worst horrors of World War II.

In Paris, amid all the elegance of French society, word arrives that Hitler has invaded Poland. The parents of Peter Warden's fiancee, Natcha, are killed in the bombing of Warsaw; Leonore flees to America; Paula and Marc are married at the Warden estate on the Riviera; and Elizabeth and Jean-Luc become lovers. Their passion for each other dominates the story.

Elizabeth discovers that Jean-Luc is setting up a network to resist the Nazis should Germany invade and occupy France. She is drawn into this network while working as a model for Paris Vogue. Under surveillance by the Germans, Elizabeth sneaks out of Paris and joins Jean-Luc in his resistance organization in Nice. They assist those most wanted by the Gestapo to escape along a route they have established to Spain.

Jean-Luc is appointed by de Gaulle as a major underground leader in France and Elizabeth is almost captured as she makes her way in disguise to Vichy. Peter is now with the American Embassy accredited to the pro-Nazi Vichy government and Marc is an official in that government.

America is now in the war, the Germans occupy all of France, and Elizabeth holds Jean-Luc to his pledge to escape when they have done all that they can for the cause. On their way into Spain, Jean-Luc is captured and Elizabeth, disguised as a prostitute, attempts a daring rescue.