A PRELUDE TO VERSAILLES

Love and Intrigue at the Paris Peace Conference

By: Mark Anthony Sullivan

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Nothing had prepared Lieutenant George Murphy for Paris. Before he was wounded all he had seen in France were mud, blood and gunfire in the trenches, but then he is sent to a hospital in the City of Light. After the armistice he is assigned to the American peace conference delegation as one of the few American officers who can speak French. There he faces perils ranging from phony news reports of a crime wave among American troops to being accused of murder himself.
Fiona McDermott is the light of the Irish peace delegation, but British disdain for that body blocks it from being officially seated. For someone so young she exhibits fine diplomatic and social skills but will continue to do only so long as she can escape both her past and the fanatics pursuing her. Only time will tell if George and Fiona can save each other!

Intrigue and Romance in 1919 Paris

This is a fast-moving and entertaining historical novel with mystery and romance.

An earnest and inexperienced American Army 1st Lieutenant stumbles into international intrigue and romance in post-WW1 Paris at the Paris Peace Conference. He interacts with two beautiful young women: one a mysterious Belgian (Russian); the other a disreputable Irish IRA-affiliated representative with whom he immediately falls in love. The lieutenant is repeatedly accused of or implicated in criminal activity by unknown agents. An interwoven plot develops involving British, American, and French delegates to the Conference and also involving Irish Unionists and Republicans, Bolsheviks and Czarist Russians, British MI5, and French police. It was refreshing to have an entertaining story take place in an interesting time in European and American history that receives little recent historical novel attention.

The Virtual Voice with a female American English accent does an overall good job except it mangles pronunciation of French words. A male Virtual Voice would have been more appropriate since the majority of speaking characters are male.

an interesting book

This is a well written book with a believable storyline, and the written characters carry the theme well.

That AI produced reading lacks inflection and personality. Terrible.

I thought the story was difficult to follow and lacks personality. It’s a waste of my time. I did not like it.

Utterly disappointing

The subject of the book seemed interesting so I bought it. What it didn’t say -and should be CLEARLY SHOWN- is that it is a “virtual voice” narration. A flat, toneless, reading aloud -including: “underscore” as a word instead of the pause the underscore conveyed. Furthermore, the voice is feminine and young while the protagonist is a male officer, recently arrived from the front to work on the peace talks because of his fluid French rather than his diplomatic acumen. There is no intonation, no change in the voice between male and female characters, no emotional reflection of the mood the characters. Even the “hero moment” of the protagonist goes unnoticed by the terrible virtual voice. Had I known this was a virtual voice narration, I would not have bought it. A true ripoff.