Dear Please note the * toward the end of description.When young Gastien Beauchamp flees the farm for Paris, the late nineteenth century bohemian era is in full swing. Color has always called to him, beseeching him to capture it on canvas and show people a new way of seeing things. His father belittled his dream of being an artist and tried to beat him into giving it up. The dream wouldn't die, but Gastien would have had he not left.He also yearns to become a great lover. After the years of anguish he has endured at the hand of his father, it would be heaven to feel pleasure instead of pain.However, the city of Paris has a ruthless agenda. Unless a man has money and connections, Paris unfeelingly crushes dreams and destroys souls. With neither of the required assets, Gastien faces living in alleys, digging in trash bins for food, and sleeping where a man is often killed for his threadbare blanket.Left with only his dreams, Gastien stubbornly pushes on. He vows that absolutely nothing will stop him, not yet realizing what keeping that vow might mean. Sometimes the and "impossible and " is possible - but the cost can be extremely high.*This book contains the 1st 21 chapters - almost 83,000 words - of Gastien Part 1: The Cost of the Dream, the first volume in and "The Gastien Series and ". and " The Beginning and " is only meant to give the reader a good sample of the storyline, the author's style, and the chance to see if they want to commit to a full series of an ADULT drama family saga that is also steeped in history. Please understand that this sample is not a stand- alone book, although the reader will experience more than what is usually the size of a full length novel (most are 60,000 to 70,000 words). If the reader decides that they enjoy the story of Gastien, the next step is to move on to Gastien Part 1: The Cost of the Dream, which also contains these first 83,000 words plus an additional almost 64,000. I hope that after reading the equivalent of the length of one novel you love Gastien enough to buy the first book and then the other four books in and "The Gastien Series and ". It is an emotionally charged saga and a ride that I feel you will find worth taking. -Caddy Rowland, AuthorHistoric people, places, events and things Impressionism, bohemia, Acdemie Julian, bourgeois, Cremerie Restaurant Polidor, absinthe, hashish, Le Procope, Montmartre, Notre Dame de Paris, artist, gentry, peasant