Book excerpt: A Room at Guardian Angel Inn opens with two young, lost boys sleeping under a tree next to the side of the road deep in the French countryside. A soldier returning from the Crimean War finds them and brings them to the inn of the title which is run by two generous sisters, one of whom has a bit of cheek in her. Happy to have found a home with a loving family, the boys begin a series of adventures, spurred on by the irascible General Dourakine. A Russian aristocrat and sometime prisoner of war, his stay at the Inn causes mayhem that will delight readers of all ages.