When Marshall Becker arrives in Lamorlaye, France, to begin the massive renovation of a Renaissance-era castle, he unearths a dark World War II history few in the village remember. The project that was meant to provide an escape for Becker instead becomes a gripping glimpse into the human drama that unfolded during the Nazi occupation and seems to live on in midnight disturbances and bizarre acts of vandalism. Populated with a cast of complex characters, "Tangled Ashes" follows Becker's exploration of the castle's shadowy past as he seeks to cope with an unbearable present. From the virtually mute recluse who lives in the gatehouse to the feisty and enigmatic nanny of the owner's children, every one of the château's inhabitants seems to have something to hide and something to survive-but none more so than Becker himself. Born in France to an American mother and a Canadian father, Michèle Phoenix is an international writer with multicultural sensitivities. A graduate of Wheaton College, she currently works in Europe, at the boarding school for missionaries' children she attended as a teenager. She has spent the past eighteen years there communicating her passion for writing, music and theater to her students. Though Michèle's novels are fictional, they contain traces of the people, places and events that have shaped her life. For further www.michelephoenix.com Lindsey Bridwell