Spies! Romance! Mystery! Yaks! It’s All Happening in The Dream of the Turquoise Bee!
Hi Everyone–
Announcing that the novel I’d been writing for eight years, The Dream of the Turquoise Bee, is out in paperback and all ebook channels (Kindle, Nook), so check it out. Over the years I’ve been in the Dharamsala refugee community and in Tibet, I’ve collected some touching, hilarious and tragic stories from my Tibetan friends and have woven them all into a story that has been reviewed as “a ripping tale of intrigue” and ” mesmerizing stories of life on the Tibetan Plateau all brought together in a novel that will both charm you and capture your attention from beginning to end.”
Order now at:
Barnes and Noble (Paperback and Nook)
ABOUT THE DREAM of the TURQUOISE BEE:
In 1959, renowned French photojournalist Girard Pelletier disappears in Tibet. His colleagues believe he was murdered, as it is known he was writing a book about the Chinese takeover of Tibet. Years later his wife, Erzebet, a botanical illustrator, accepts an official invitation to join an educational exchange in the same region where Girard disappeared. She believes she will solve the mystery of his disappearance. The scholarly mission is a ruse. Erzebet has been set up by the Chinese Government.
What appears to be a scholarly quest evolves into a twisting tale of the police, forbidden romance, dangerous adventures, and personal obsessions played out against the backdrop of the spectacular landscape, exotic people, wildlife and flowers of Tibet.
REVIEWS HAVE BEEN STRONG, SALES ARE MARCHING ALONG:
A rich and powerful novel that combines romance, mysticism, and politics in the mysterious world of Tibet. A thrilling and intelligent story unfolds as artist and botanist Erzebet Pelletier sets out to find wildflowers — and to discover what happened to her journalist husband who vanished years earlier as the Chinese moved into Tibet.
— Sasha Paulsen, Napa Valley Register
My greatest hope in writing this novel was that Tibetan themselves would think it captured the truth of their lives,:the struggle, the fun, and the connection to the West which has been enthralled by the Tibetan story for centuries. And, so it has:
“. . . the touching and gripping tale of Tibetans who escape over the mountains to India, pray for the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet, live under the brutal oppression of the Chinese government, and teach their children to love, herd animals and read—this describes my parents and their parents and their parents before them in Tibet. More than a great adventure story you cannot put down, this is an education about our culture–written by someone who has been on the inside learning and experiencing it for years.”
–Lobsang Tsering (Director of Tibetan Living Communities)
Dianne with nuns on a mountaintop in Kham–musing about the future of Tibet.
I wanted to tell the story and interlace it with my work in botanical illustration on the Plateau (I’ve got 58 paintings so far, with another 50 to go) , so that’s in there, too, as Erzebet Pelletier, a French botanical illustrator, travels to Tibet to solve the mystery of her husband’s disappearance.
Scrophulariaceae Lancea tibetica hook, Painted in Kham, Tibet 2007
Where did it happen? Here, at the nomad camp at Manigango in Kham, where nomads, horses, and yaks live on the shores of the sacred lake known for its celadon waters and stones carved with the Tibetan Buddhist prayer, Om Mani Padme Hung:
Yi-Lhun Latso Lake, the sacred lake near Manigango, the scene of the action in the Dream of the Turquoise Bee
And of course, what is Tibet and what is a botanical illustrator in Tibet without the stunning display of the the Tibetan Blue Poppy to drive the turquoise bee wild?
The stunning blue poppy with its fragile sapphire flowers and needle-sharp thorns–what a metaphor for love and mystery in Tibet. . .
Hope you love it and think of it as a great gift for friends and colleagues for the holidays and those reading vacations. 10% of the profits from all sales go to Tibetan support groups and projects world-wide, so while you kick back and dream of Tibet, you continue to give to our friends on the Plateau, too. The first set of profits will go to International Campaign for Tibet until January 15, 2013.
ONWARD!!
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