FranceBookTours -- One Sip at a Time

If you know me at all, you would suspect that I would dive right into One Sip at a Time by Keith Van Sickle. This book is full of the author's observations of life as he and his wife move to Provence. They had already lived along the border of Switzerland and France, so they were not strangers to living abroad.
Each story is a short snippet, like a blog post, and they are all joined together to create a small memoir, which is nice if you only have short bursts of time to read.
The author covers the major stumbling blocks that ex-pats face and does it in an entertaining, tongue-in-cheek manner. He addresses situations like driving in France, learning the language and making friends. In the section titled "The French Citizenship Test," I wondered if the author and his wife were actually becoming French citizens, but instead, he talked about the challenge of eating a croissant without leaving messy crumbs. Yes, I can see that would be a challenge, and perhaps the ultimate test to become a French citizen. 
One chapter I found interesting was about the presidential election in France. When we visited France in May, they had just elected Macron. Van Sickle writes about the election of Hollande, so a few years before. Like us, he was impressed by the shortness of the election.
If you're curious about life in France and interested in a light-hearted look at it, One Sip at a Time can take you there.
Make sure you scroll down and enter to win a copy of the book.

Keith Van Sickle

on Tour November 6-17 with

One Sip at a Time: Learning to Live in Provence

(travel memoir) Release date: January 28, 2017 at Dresher Publishing ISBN: 978-0998312002 192 pages Author’s page | Goodreads  

SYNOPSIS

Can a two-career couple really pick up stakes and move to Provence? Keith and Val had a dream – to live in Provence, the land of brilliant sunlight, charming hilltop villages and the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean. But there were two problems: they weren’t French speakers and they had full-time jobs. So they came up with a plan… Follow their adventures (and misadventures) as they quit their jobs, become consultants and split their time between two countries. Laugh along as they build a life in Provence, slowly mastering a new language and making friends with the locals over long meals and just a bit too much wine. If you’ve ever dreamed of changing gears and learning what joie de vivre is really all about, you won’t want to miss this delightful book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Keith Van Sickle is a technology industry veteran and lifelong traveler who got his first taste of overseas life while studying in England during college. But it was the expat assignment to Switzerland that made him really fall in love with Europe. After returning to California, he and his wife Val dreamed of living abroad again but were unable to find another expat gig. So they decided to invent their own. Now they split their time between Silicon Valley and St-Rémy-de-Provence, delving ever deeper into what makes France so endlessly fascinating. Find the author on Facebook and Twitter Visit his website Subscribe to his mailing list and get information about new releases. Buy the book on Amazon.com

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GIVEAWAY

Enter here

Visit each blogger on the tour: tweeting about the giveaway everyday of the Tour will give you 5 extra entries each time! [just follow the directions on the entry-form]

Global giveaway open to all 5 winners

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CLICK ON THE BANNER TO READ REVIEWS, EXCERPTS, AND GUEST-POST

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Book Review -- Abby's Journey

In the novel Abby's Journey by Steena Holmes, the author tells the story of Abby, a 20-year-old girl who has battled illness all of her life, suddenly healthy for a year.

Her grandmother swoops in with a surprise trip to Europe, especially the Christmas markets in Germany that her mother always dreamed of visiting. Her father, who raised her alone after Abby's mother died in childbirth, resists allowing her to go, fearing for her health and for what his life might be without her at home. This story changes perspective so the story is told through Abby's eyes, through the grandmother, Millie's, viewpoint, and through the father's voice.
What I liked about this book: This was a sweet book with some lovely descriptions. Anyone who enjoys travel will be carried away to Europe in the author's descriptive passages, like this one about the Christmas market in Salzburg from the grandmother's viewpoint:

Author Steena Holmes

Abby grabbed her hand to pull her close, and together they walked arm in arm, down the street. The roads were cobbled, and streetlights in the shape of stars were strung along the lanes, casting a soft glow onto the shops and people as they walked. 

The music, the setting, the large Christmas trees, the illuminated castle up on the hill -- it was all perfect. Everything she'd thought a Christmas market would be and should be. 

 The characters were well developed with many side twists so that Abby's Journey was not the only complication going on. The support of family and of a charming Canadian village added to the overall positive feel of the book.

What could have improved: The tension and drama in the book could have been intensified so that the reader got caught up more, wondering what would occur. I also had a hard time with the basic premise, which was carried out in the first book Saving Abby. In that book, Abby's mother became pregnant with her and realized she had a brain tumor. She refused treatment so that Abby could be born, thus leading to her own death and Abby growing up ill and without a mother. If it were my daughter, no chance that I would let her wait for treatment if she was pregnant. The life we have is more precious than the potential life, in my opinion, plus the sacrifices that the father had to make in order to raise his baby alone. So those controversies played in my mind while I read this novel.

This is definitely a novel that I enjoyed reading, in spite of, or maybe because of, some of the controversies that went with it.

The publisher has offered one free copy of this book to someone in the United States or Canada, so let me know if you're interested and I'll enter you in the giveaway. Make sure I can get in touch with you to get your address if you win.

Purchase Links

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble

Connect with Steena

Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Giveaway -- Amazon Gift Card

I'm trying to take a deep breath on this, the last day of the month.
July has flown by, hasn't it?
I've had some spectacular days, walks with my husband, walks with my friend Sheila, hanging out with my children and talking about everything or nothing.
I'm already missing the early, early morning sunshine. I'm disappointed now that the sun isn't rising at 5:30. I think that if I had the money, I'd follow the summer, maybe spend my winters in New Zealand.
Well, on the last day of the month, I'm trying to sell a few extra copies of Paris Runaway, my latest novel. So, if you were considering a purchase of Paris Runaway, $5.99 for the Kindle edition, go ahead and buy it today and leave a comment here or on my Facebook page or send me an email or tweet, and I'll enter your name to win a $25 Amazon gift card.

The drawing will be Sunday evening, so your odds are very good.
Some readers have said this is their favorite of all my novels. It has a couple of steamy, romantic scenes, but mostly it's women's fiction with the main character dealing with the complications of life and raising teenagers as a single mother, while chasing after her daughter to France.
Don't take my word for it though, go to the link and read the reviews.
I love that different readers can have totally different experiences:

Here's a review from Goodreads: "An interesting, entertaining suspense novel, I loved it.
Could not put it down, I felt I was with her in Paris."

Here's another review from Goodreads: "The highlight of the book would be its narration. Looking at Paris through the writers eyes was sheer blissful. The narration is vivid and the writer has tastefully described Paris even when the story demanded that the setting be dimmed out. That blending and weaving of the setting even when the main character writhed in turmoil was done perfectly without compromising emotions."

And one of my favorite reviews: "This was a fabulous beach read! I picked it up this morning and never sat it down until I was done. The characters were relatable and their adventure was a joy to watch unfold. If only real life teenage drama ended in a trip to Paris and an adventure with a sexy French man then the teenage years would not seem so bad."

Thanks for your support, whether you buy my novel or not, reading my blog helps give me that feeling of community too. If you do buy it, I wish you a lovely, relaxing day or reading and a quick trip to Paris, even if it's only in the book.

$50 Amazon Giveaway -- One Day Only

Buy my novel I See London I See France on Amazon ($4.99) by noon on Saturday and share it on Facebook, tagging me, Paulita Kincer,(Writer) and you’ll be entered to win a $50 Amazon gift card. The contest runs from now until noon on Saturday, March 15 (Eastern Standard Time). Enter now!

Contest details: Buy my novel in Kindle or paperback form from Amazon (or Barnes & Noble). After you check out, Amazon offers the opportunity to share your purchase on Facebook or Twitter. Share, tagging my author page, Paulita Kincer(writer). 

If you don’t/can’t post on Facebook, take a screenshot of your receipt and send me an email at paulita at paulitakincer dot com. The odds of winning depend on how many people participate. If you’re the only one who plays, you’re the winner of the Amazon gift card. If two people play, your odds are 50/50. If 100 people play, your odds are 1/100.  I’ll enter all the names in a random name selector and select the winner at random on Saturday, March 15.

In a few weeks, I’ll do another giveaway for everyone who posts a 4- or 5-star review on my novel on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, so if you don’t win this time, you’ll have another chance. 

Giveaway Winner & Life Getting in the Way

I know I owe everyone the name of the giveaway for Mike Dixon's book Wolf Wood.
I promise to do a fair and square drawing on Saturday and write a real blog post about it..
Meanwhile, I'm shuffling along on my NaNoWriMo challenge and I've written more than 14,000 words so far this month.
NaNo has some cool widgets that would tell you how much I've written. I can't predict whether this will change as I update my word count or not.


So, I'm busy writing, plus the usual family stuff. Plus I have a sinus infection and apparently a trick knee. The sinus and the knee pain have kept me from running very far. I'm sure both are hurting my progress on my novel.
And my novel has just gone in a strange direction, but I figure as long as I keep writing, there will have to be some parts in there worth saving.

First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser Plus a Book Giveaway

Giveaway
I'm thrilled to offer a book giveaway this week too. Mike Dixon, author of Wolf Wood, has generously

offered to send out a hard copy to either a North American or UK reader, along with an ecopy. Dixon's book is set in Medieval England and France. It includes a great attention to detail and some intriguing characters that you'll cheer for while rooting against those Medieval bad guys. See my full review here.
Leave a comment and make sure I know how to reach you if you want to be registered. I'll draw a winner next Wednesday, Nov. 6.

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading
This is one of those weeks that I wish I had more time to spend curled up in a chair on the front porch with a book.
I have more time, since three of my classes finished, but a new one is starting and I have a list of things to do that I've put off.
But here's a book that I have snuck a bit of so far. Someone online recommended it to me, but I can't remember where or when.
The House of the Wind by Titania Hardie is about a woman who is heartbroken after her fiance dies, so her grandfather sned her to Tuscany to heal. Who couldn't heal in Tuscany? The story is interwoven with one from 1347 in the same area of Tuscany.
Here's the intro from the first chapter:

In the calendar of seasons and times, January is Janus-headed: the patron month of gateways and doors, of looking forward and backward. Back over what has been, what brings us to this point; ahead to what may be, anticipating the dreams of future days.
Perhaps today, laughing and circling the date on her calendar with a bright pen, Madeline Moretti had given some thought to this, at least unconsciously. She'd certainly been revising in her mind Christopher's favorite foods -- his preference for salads and seafood, his enjoyment of full-bodied red wines more than champagne, his very British love of crumpets (accompanied with quince jelly!) instead of croissants, his funny thing for rose Turkish delight and dates dipped in dark melted chocolate -- so that when she opened the cupboard tomorrow on his first morning in San Francisco she would be able to supply his most eccentric wish effortlessly, with dainties that had been shipped in anywhere from Maine to the Napa Valley, from London to Provence, "from silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon."

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays. Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Open to a random page of your current read  and share a teaser sentence from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.
Here's my teaser from page 101:

The captain raced on in his speech. "We thought the girl had been killed, crushed by the fallen masonry, along with her parents and the guards. But," he said, breathing in deeply, "after the weather let up we began to clear away much of the rubble, and while all other bodies have been recovered, she appears to have vanished. There is no trace of her. It is witchcraft!"

Please Enter the Giveaway

In honor of Paris in July, and all things French, you can win a $20 Amazon gift card and a copy of my novel The Summer of France. Just enter the giveaway below. The winter will be randomly chosen on the last day of July.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Seduction by M.J. Rose and a Giveaway

 When I first began the novel Seduction by M.J. Rose, I was confused. It started with a journal written by Victor Hugo in Jersey, Channel Islands in 1855 and recalled how he had learned of his daughter's drowning death 12 years before. The next section jumped to Upstate Connecticut present day and a character named Jac L'Etoile who had been dealing with "hallucinations" of past life regressions since she was a teenager. Jac, short for Jacinthe, the French word for hyacinthe, worked as a producer of a reality TV show that debunked myths in cultures around the world.

Author M.J. Rose

I couldn't begin to see how these stories related, and I feared that I wouldn't care about the hashish smoking and seances of Hugo. But I became enthralled as these stories crossed at more than one juncture. Rose carefully wove the stories together, relying on facts about Hugo where she could and tying his experiences to the characters in some of his writing, including the characters in Les Miserables. The author also included an even older story of ancient Druids and their traditions, which worked with Jac's career and her past-life regressions. About halfway into the book, I needed to find out what happened and I raced through to get the answers.
My favorite parts about this book have to be the emphasis on scents. Jac comes from a family of parfumiers, but different smells send her into hallucinations about previous lives. Here's a section from 69% on my Kindle:

But there was something else Jac smelled. A rich and spicy perfume that combined roses, ylang-ylang and oak moss. Trapped in the pages for how many years, a fine French perfume was escaping. It was the kind of scent she had grown up with. Nothing like most modern mass-produced fragrances, but beautifully articulated and rounded. She sniffed at it. There was one note that she couldn't quite figure out, and that note was similar to the mysterious note in Ash's cologne. no, not similar, it was the same note. It was that curious amber she'd found in Fantine's studio. 

The emphasis on fragrance definitely made me more aware of scents around me and I wished I had the skill at separating and divining each one like Jac did.
One drawbacks of the story is the initial puzzlement waiting for the stories to come together, but once they intertwine, they are fascinating.
Once all the stories were interwoven and came to an end, I definitely felt that the overriding message came through: Embrace life -- the one you are living now.
The characters were flawed but likable and they all had solid supporting characters so it didn't seem like they would have to face their fears alone.
I recommend this book as a deliciously unfurling, then fast-paced novel of suspense.
Leave a comment and information about how to reach you at the end of this post, and you'll be entered to win a copy of a manuscript page with M.J. Rose's signature. The winner of the page will be entered into another drawing to win the necklace pictured above and on the cover of Seduction.

Here's a synopsis of the novel Seduction as provided by the publisher:

A gothic tale about Victor Hugo's long-buried secrets
and the lengths we go to for love...
In 1843, novelist Victor Hugo's beloved nineteen-year-old daughter drowned. Ten years later, still grieving, Hugo initiated hundreds of séances from his home on the Isle of Jersey in order to reestablish contact with her. In the process, he claimed to have communed with Plato, Galileo, Shakespeare, Dante, Jesus—and even the Devil himself. Hugo's transcriptions of these conversations have all been published.
Or so it has been believed...
Recovering from a great loss, mythologist Jac L'Etoile thinks that throwing herself into work will distract her from her grief. In the hopes of uncovering a secret about the island's mysterious Celtic roots, she arrives on the Isle of Jersey and is greeted by ghostly Neolithic monuments, medieval castles, and hidden caves.
But the man who's invited her there, a troubled soul named Theo Gaspard, hopes she'll help him discover something quite different—transcripts of Hugo's lost conversations with someone he called the Shadow of the Sepulcher. Central to his heritage, these are the papers his grandfather died trying to find.

But what neither Jac or Theo anticipate is that the mystery surrounding Victor Hugo will threaten their sanity and put their very lives at stake.

Seduction is a historically evocative and atmospheric tale of suspense with a spellbinding ghost story at its heart, written by one of America's most gifted and imaginative novelists. Awakening a mystery that spans centuries, this multi-layered gothic brings a time, a place, and a cast of desperate characters brilliantly to life.
Hardcover, 384 pages
Expected publication: May 7th 2013 by Atria Books
ISBN1451621507 (ISBN13: 9781451621501)

Thanks for visiting and remember to leave a comment and your  email if you want to be included in the giveaway.