Book Cover Reveal

I'm excited to share with you a new book cover for The Summer of France, my very first published novel.
Without further fanfare:

Why, you may ask, a new book cover for The Summer of France?
Because The Summer of France is now book 1 in the series A New Life in Provence.
That's right, the 2nd book, Falling for Provence, is coming soon.
And I'll share that book cover when I have more details.
A shout out to my fabulous book designer Janna Thompson-Chordas.
When I was searching for someone to create covers, I thought about going with a designer far away in India or Pakistan, but then I thought to ask around my town in Ohio and found Janna. She designs covers for OSU publishing so you know she's a pro.
You, my readers, all have always been so supportive of my writing and I really appreciate it. I wonder if you'll be able to see differences in my writing now that I am living in France.
I'll tell you one change that I had to make as I was writing Falling for Provence. I had Fia, the main character, listening to Pandora music on her phone.
Guess what? You can't get Pandora in Europe. Good thing I moved here to learn that little tidbit.
If you are interested in learning more about when my next novel will be released, please leave your email in the comments or send me an email at paulita@paulitakincer.com and I'll begun compiling an email list.
That way, you won't miss it when book 2 of A New Life in Provence is released.

FranceBookTours -- Drawing Lessons by Patricia Sands

CLICK ON THE BANNER TO READ REVIEWS AND EXCERPTS

Drawing Lessons by Patricia Sands is a lovely, romantic meander down a river with stops in all the nooks and crannies of French villages that people long to explore. Arianna's life as she knows it ends when her husband is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimers. She devotes herself to caring for him, but as he reaches a point where he has no idea if she is there or not, her grown children convince her to travel to France and attend an art class, hoping to spark her earlier life interests. Of course, France does reignite Arianna's love for life and art. Sands is a connoisseur of France, carefully taking us along on the sensory journeys in France, from the Roman ruins in Arles to the delicate taste of wine and each scrumptious meal. 

"Wooden doors with enormous and ornate keyholes, handcrafted lifetimes before, bore witness to the centuries of history that had crossed their portals. They fascinated Arianna, and she was surprised to feel the urge to sketch them. Perhaps something was stirring in her after all, she mused."

And later in Arles she comes upon a woman singing and playing the guitar:

"The ambiance of the moment floated like a cloud around her: the history and redolent beauty of the surroundings, the setting sun painting the sky and washing the stone in shades of pink, the absence of others, and the emotional power of the song. Arianna promised herself this would be the beginning of moving forward. She closed her eyes and made a silent vow. Peace comes from within." 

Even as Sands' main character deals with her emotional challenges, there is a peacefulness that fills her while she explores France and opens herself to the possibilities. 

I enjoyed this novel and felt refreshed afterward, as I had gone on a journey of my own. I even made a few notes of places to visit when next we visit France. 
Scroll down to enter the contest to win a copy of this book too.

Patricia Sands

on Tour October 2-13 with

Drawing Lessons

(women’s fiction) Release date: October 1, 2017 at Lake Union Publishing ISBN: 978-1542045872 352 pages Author’s page | Goodreads  

SYNOPSIS

The author of the Love in Provence series returns to the South of France with a poignant portrait of a woman who must learn how to create a new life for herself… Sixty-two-year-old Arianna arrives in the South of France for a two-week artists’ workshop full of anticipation but burdened by guilt. Back home in Toronto, she has been living with the devastating diagnosis of her husband’s dementia and the heartbreak of watching the man she has loved for decades slip away before her eyes. What does her future hold without Ben? Before her is a blank canvas. Encouraged by her family to take some time for herself, she has traveled to Arles to set up her easel in the same fields of poppies and sunflowers that inspired Van Gogh. Gradually, she rediscovers the inner artist she abandoned long ago. Drawing strength from the warm companionship and gentle wisdom of her fellow artists at the retreat—as well as the vitality of guest lecturer Jacques de Villeneuve, an artist and a cowboy—Arianna searches her heart for permission to embrace the life in front of her and, like the sunflowers, once again face the light.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Patricia Sands lives in Toronto, but her heart’s other home is the South of France. An avid traveler, she spends part of each year on the Côte d’Azur and occasionally leads groups of women on tours of the Riviera and Provence. Her award-winning 2010 debut novel, The Bridge Club, is a book-group favorite, and The Promise of Provence, which launched her three-part Love in Provence series (followed by Promises to Keep and I Promise You This), was a finalist for a 2013 USA Best Book Award and a 2014 National Indie Excellence Award, was an Amazon Hot New Release in April 2013, and was a 2015 nominee for a #RBRT Golden Rose award in the category of romance. Sands also contributes to such Francophile websites as The Good Life France and Perfectly Provence, and she appears as a public speaker for women’s groups. Find Patricia on Facebook, on Twitter on Instagram at her Amazon Author Page or her website Subscribe to her 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 2 winners

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Dreaming of France -- Uncorked

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
In the midst of my moving preparation, I found the time to read a relatively short memoir about a Canadian man who moved to Saint Paul de Vence to work in IT. The book is called Uncorked: My Year in Provence Studying Pétanque , Discovering Chagall, Drinking Pastis, and Mangling French.  He tells the story of how he fell in love with game of  pétanque and convinced a local man to teach him to play in the dark of night. Eventually, the man embraced him as a partner, and he became one of the locals playing pétanque by the cafe and ignoring tourists.

This was an entertaining book because it addressed a topic that is oftentimes touched upon in books but rarely focused on. Of course, the game wasn't the entire point. The game helped him integrate into the village. And since we are planning to move to France, we always wonder how we'll worm our way into local life. Earl pictures himself sitting on a bench watching pétanque and eventually being allowed to play with the other old men in the village. I think I'd better get him a coach.
Here's the beginning of Chapter 1:

The French word bisou  is used to describe the charming manner in which the French greet one another with a ceremonial kiss on both cheeks. This act should not be mistaken for a sign of real affection or even friendship but rather as a refreshingly warm way of saying hello or goodbye.
As tourists in France, we foreigners have all been witness to these tiny gifts, but rarely do we gain admittance into the tightknit club of the 60 million or so people who exchange them.... Receiving and delivering countless bisous during my year in the magical Cote d'Azur village of Saint-Paul de Vence made me feel a sense of "limited belonging," but when my neighbor, friend, and, most importantly, pétanque coach, Hubert bid me farewell by initiating a bisou, after my last match and last pastis as a local, it gave me pause to reflect on how close I had become to this part of the world, its people, its culture, and the game I fell in love with the minute I first laid eyes on it: pétanque!

 I loaned the book to Earl on Kindle so he can read it too. Hope it doesn't make him fear playing pétanque in France. It's mean to encourage him.
How about you? Have you ever played pétanque or boules as it is called in other parts of France? What about receiving or giving a bisou? Have you experienced that? 
I'd love it if you shared your experience. 
Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave your link below and visit each other's blogs to share your love for France.

Dreaming of France -- Lavender

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

This week, I'm also linking up with Paris in July, a  yearly meme hosted by a couple of bloggers who also love France.

Every day, my Fitbit urges me to walk 250 steps each hour for nine hours in a row. Nevermind that I might have already reached my 10,000 step goal. It wants me moving every hour from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. I've figured out that if I walk out my back door, down the alley, turn left and walk around the block to my front door, that's about 250 steps.
As I made that circuit the other day, I felt a nostalgia, a warm feeling. I couldn't figure out why. I made the walk a couple more times before I realized that it was the smell of lavender wafting to my nose as I passed a large lavender bush on the corner. I stopped to watch the deep purple stems covered with fat bees that buzzed fiercely. They were drawn by the scent too.

I envy my neighbor's lovely lavender bush, but I know that next year at this time, I will be inundated by the smell because I'll be living in southern France.
I wonder if the lavender fields are awash in bees busily gathering pollen to create their lavender honey.
Will I grow tired of the scent? I don't think so.
I have to admit that the smell of diesel fuel reminds me of Paris. My second trip to France, acting as an au pair, I got lost in the bus system, wandering the city with a 3-year-old and 4-year-old girl. We finally got on the correct bus, headed in the correct direction, but the smell of diesel fuel always takes me right back there.
Is there something that reminds you of France -- a smell, a sound, a sight, a taste?

Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave your name and a link to your blog on Mr. Linky below. I really appreciate your participation and I hope you'll leave a comment plus visit each other's blogs.

The Final Year

One year from tomorrow, my husband and I will have packed up and sold our house. We will have limited our lives to four large suitcases, and we will be leaving to live in France.
One year!
I can't write this post tomorrow because I committed to a post for FranceBookTours, so instead I'm writing it today.
Why did we choose May 20? It's the week after Mother's Day. It's the end of the semester for school, and at least two of our children will be graduated from college.

Whoever took our picture, cut off the top of the Eiffel Tower!

I'm so fortunate that my husband bought into my France dream.

I've dragged him to France numerous times, and he even went once without me when depositing Grace in France. (She hates to fly.)

This was our first trip to France together. I think my husband
has a shirt tied around his waist, rather than really high pants.

We plan to spend a few days in Paris before we take a train to the South of France. We'll rent a house for three or four months while we determine which village we want to live in.

Here we are on a windy day in front of Versailles. 

I picture us riding our bicycles or the taking the train or a rental car to various villages on market day to get a feel for each one. When we figure out where we want to move, we'll start looking for a house.

Here we are on our bike trip in front of the Pont du Gard. 

By September, I hope we'll be in a French home of our own.

This was us in a Moroccan restaurant. The building is ancient. 

And, of course, I plan to take all of you along with us, and to share the ups and the downs of moving to a new country.

Tuesday Intros -- I Promise You This

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.

I'm reading a book set in France for FranceBookTours. I'll be reviewing I Promise You This by Patricia Sands on May 20, and  there will be a book giveaway, so I hope you'll come back for that.
Here's the intro:

Rain pelted down.
The limo crawled along in a clog of traffic. For the most part, the rhythmic slap of the windshield wipers was all that broke the silence.
Philippe knew that Kat was struggling to keep her composure. He kept the conversation light and brief as they looked out from the backseat. "Now you see why I never take a taxi into Paris from the airport. At least with a hired car and driver, I don't have to watch the meter skyrocket if we get caught like this."
Kat nodded expressionless, staring straight ahead. She thought it fitting that the weather was as gloomy and dark as the feelings she was fighting.
When the familiar landmarks of the Left Bank came into view, her mood began to lift. She leaned her head back against the seat. Her hand nestled in Philippe's. 

I had to keep the intro going until we got to a definitely French part -- the Left Bank.
I look forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

Dreaming of France -- Southern France

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Yesterday, I had a lovely Skype conversation with my friend Delana who moved to Aix en Provence for a year and never came back to the States. 

She's answering questions about how to transition to France. So we talked about things like when to apply for our Carte de Sejour. I didn't even know that we needed to do that!

Delana suggested we come over in May for a few weeks to feel out the area in Languedoc and decide where we would like to rent an apartment for a few months while looking for a house.

Earl and I both jumped at the chance to visit France this year and immediately started calculating how expensive the trip would be. 

I found an apartment in Nimes for 10 days. Nimes is right on the cusp between Provence and Languedoc, but technically in Languedoc.

 I thought Nimes would be a perfect place to stay so that we could visit Delana and tour Languedoc. That's when I remembered that Earl and I had visited Nimes before, on our bicycle trip through Provence.

We started in Avignon. 

This is me in front of the Pont de Avignon

We rode our bikes 40 miles that first day from Avignon to see the Pont du Gard, the famous Roman aqueduct.

I don't know why, but it surprised me that we could ride our bikes across something that old!

And here's another shot after we had crossed. 

At the end of the day, we arrived in Nimes where we spent the night. Our hotel was located across the street from a Roman amphitheater, and we also toured some Roman gardens. 

As much as we'd love to, we may not get to visit France this spring, but I know that next May we'll definitely be flying across the ocean as we look for a new home in France.

Dreaming of France -- Provence Video by The New York Times

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

After a couple of very hectic days, on Sunday morning, I had the chance to enjoy some down time.
The yeasty smell of rising croissants waiting to be baked greeted me as I walked through the empty house; everyone else was sleeping.
I clicked on an email link my friend Najah had sent me. The title was "36 Hours in Provence." I saw that the video ran 6 minutes long, so I hesitated. Did I have time to watch a 6-minute video.
Yes! I deserved six minutes in Provence, but first I made a cup of coffee and steamed the milk until it was frothy.
Then I took my computer and my coffee to the cool air of the front porch and clicked start.
36 Hours in Provence

Unfortunately, the video is available to upload directly to my blog, so I've captured a shot from the video and included the link here. It's definitely worth  your time if you want to long to visit Provence. The video focused a bit too much on "going out" kinds of clubs rather than the gorgeous landscapes and Roman architecture that I'm entranced by, but maybe some of you are looking for hot clubs to visit. 

The New York Times also did a video call "36 Hours in Nice" and I can upload that one here. 

Grab a cup of coffee and a croissant and join me!

Where would you rather spend 36 hours - Provence or Nice?
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs, too, so you can get your fix of France dreams.

Dreaming of France -- Embrun

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Grace's long ago trip to France still brings up some good memories, so this week she delved into her cache of pictures and came up with these two. Embrun was a brief stop on her bus trip from Briancon in the Alps to Aix-en-Provence, but the charm of the town stuck with her. Below is a view of the mountains in the background with the town on either side of the river.

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The lac Embrun caught her eye as the bus trundled away from the city and she managed to snap this photo from another bridge. 

What are you dreaming about this week? Thanks for playing along. Please visit each other's blogs for more glimpses of France. 

Dreaming of France -- Where in France Would You Live?

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
For some people, Paris is the penultimate place to live. We love Paris, but when we imagine settling in France some day, we don't picture our lives in Paris. We think about a little village.
For the longest time, we imagined that Provence would be our home some day, but Provence has become so popular that the price to live there has become extravagant.
We've begun looking at other areas and think that Languedoc-Roussillon might be a good match.
The climate looks to be very similar to Provence and I hadn't realized that we have actually visited a part of Languedoc-Roussillon.
It was when we took our great bike trip in the south of France. We left Avignon and headed out of Provence and into Languedoc-Roussillon to cross the Pont du Gard and end that day in Nimes.

Of course, before we decide, we'll need to visit a few more times to explore. Sometimes, the exploration can be the best part.
Thanks for joining in with Dreaming of France. Please visit each other's blogs to enjoy other snippets of France.

Dreaming of France -- Magic in the Moonlight

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
I knew that Woody Allen had a new movie coming out, but I had no idea that it was set in the south of France until my friend Greg texted and told me that I should see Magic in the Moonlight.
I'm not a big Woody Allen fan, but I loved Midnight in Paris. I figured that, like me, Allen might have fallen in love with France. Maybe the culture helped him to relax a little and make his movies less neurotic.
Magic in the Moonlight is a far cry from some of Allen's insular New York movies with hysterical characters that obsess about small details. So maybe living in France has mellowed Allen.

The movie stars Colin Firth and Emma Stone -- two actors whose work I really enjoy. Firth plays Stanley Crawford, a famous magician. He travels to the south of France with a magician friend who requests his help unmasking a spiritualist. I think this part of the movie must have been based on Harry Houdini, who was a magician and who fought with spiritualists; spiritualists are people who claim to be able to speak to the dead.
Emma Stone plays the spiritualist character, Sophie Baker, a young woman from Kalamazoo, Michigan, traveling Europe with her mother, reading people's vibrations and talking to the dead. She is staying with a wealthy family from Pittsburgh, and the heir has fallen in love with her. Stanley's job is to unmask Sophie and break the spell.
As you can imagine, Stanley is a man committed to logic who doesn't believe in a spiritual life at all, and he becomes intrigued with Sophie's ability.
This film moved a little slowly. It didn't sweep me away the way Midnight in Paris did. I never forgot that I saw in the cinema with greasy buttered popcorn on the tips of my fingers.

The scenes set along the Cote d'Azur were lovely; the water sparkled more than Sophie's engagement ring.  Stanley's aunt lived in Provence, so the movie ventured there a few times. Although not much of Provence was visible, the feeling of Provence permeated. The light in the film helps remind you why artists like Van Gogh travel there to paint.
I don't regret seeing the movie, although it dragged a bit. I love France enough that I'll take any little gulps of it I can get.
But if you can only see one movie set in France this fall, I'd go with The Hundred Foot Journey.

Book Trailer

I have a new book trailer for my novel I See London I See France.
I hope you'll watch it and maybe click on "like" too to help me promote my book.

Dreaming of France -- Cats and Postcards

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Inspired by a couple of blogs that I read today, I'm posting pictures of postcards from France with cats. It's kind of a tradition for us, since about 1998 to send home postcards with pictures of cats that look like our cats.
I was reminded of that tradition today when Corey from Tongue in Cheek first talked about pictures on her refrigerator. Then I visited Virginia at Paris Through My Lens and she had a picture of cat lounging on the walk in front of a building with gorgeous green shutters. At Paris and Beyond, Genie had an fluffy orange cat sauntering along the sidewalk.  And then Anne in Oxfordshire writes frequently about her postcard collection. They all came together and I decided to write about some postcards from France with cats, and those postcards are currently stuck on my refrigerator.

Our last cat, the one we got when Grace was a 1-year-old, was totally black like this cat. When traveling in Paris with my friend Michelle, I sent this postcard home to Earl and the kids. I joked that they had left the door open so Buddy had escaped and traveled to Paris.

The next time Earl and I traveled to France, we went to Provence and sent this postcard home to the kids. Again, a black cat that was anxious to get from Ohio to France. 

We never seem to have any trouble finding postcards of cats in different French locations.

 
When Grace traveled to France, she sent home a postcard with cats too.
Does your family have a France tradition?

Dreaming of France -- Beach in Bandol

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
Maybe we can all satisfy our yearnings for France, until we get there again.
In honor of my son Spencer's birthday, I thought I'd include a photo of him on the beach in Bandol when he was 12. The kids were too young to enjoy the nightlife, but they all still talk about what fun they had in Bandol along the Mediterranean. 

The city is a perfect place to explore the Camargue, Aix en Provence and all the other cities of Provence and the Riviera.
Thanks for playing along. 

Dreaming of France -- Pont du Gard

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
Maybe we can all satisfy our yearnings for France, until we get there again.
This week I'm sharing with you some photos from our 2002 bicycle trip in Provence.
We rented bikes and they were fabulously sleek. The company delivered them to our hotel in Avignon. We had planned a 40-mile bike ride to Nimes and along the route, we'd see the famous Roman Aqueduct Pont du Gard.

From this angle, it just looks like some magnificent Roman engineering. We got to actually ride our bikes across it.

 

Look at this picture of me and the bikes. We are so small compared to the aqueduct.

The only problem that day, was we didn't pack food to eat during the bike ride. We were still in an American frame of mind and assumed we would stop for whaatever we needed to eat -- you know, at a French 7/11.

Well, those don't appear too often in France. So we rode without food and I got grumpy. 

Here I am, in desparate need of chocolate. We never rode without chocolate again.

We still consider this our best couple vacation ever.  

 

Saturday Snapshot -- My Nose in a Book

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

 

This week, I'm combining two old things: following  up on the picture from last week where I broke my nose 24 years ago and again last week, I had to have surgery to straighten it yesterday. The doctor convinced me it would be quick to fix while the bones were still broken.

So broken nose, plus -- my book published.

 

Yes, I'm hoping for some sympathy purchases... But it's also a fun book. Hope you'll give it a try.

Here's the premise:

 When Fia loses her job, she jumps at the chance to travel to France to run her great uncle's bed and breakfast, dragging along her husband and teenage twins. She figures the whole family can bond before the twins grow up too fast. But her dreams of family bonding time fade as Kasie joins a local swim team, riding off to practice on the back of a scooter each morning, hips tucked next to the 18-year-old French boy who teaches her to smoke brown cigarettes and drink red wine. West accompanies a pouty French teenager around the city, playing his guitar in the town squares to earn spending money.  And Fia's husband Grayson tours the countryside with a pretty French woman. Why the whirlwind of French welcome, Fia wonders after she comes hom froma day at the beach in Nice with the handsome Frenchman Christophe, only to find someone has ransacked the B&B.

Fia doesn't know that the house hides her uncle's World War II secret, which might just tear her family apart.

So, are you intrigued?

You can find the book on  Amazon for the Kindle, on Barnes and Noble for the Nook or in paperback. The eBook versions are $4.99 each. And if you don't have an eBook reader, you can download the Kindle reader for free on Amazon and read it on your computer. But if you prefer to have the book in your hand, the paperback is $14.

I can't wait to hear what you all think about it.



My Book is Now Available

That sounds kind of low-key, doesn't it?
Oh, anyone interested in buying my book?
Maybe if I used all caps: MY NOVEL, THE SUMMER OF FRANCE, CAN NOW BE PURCHASED.
I am so excited.
Here's me when the first copy came in the mail:

 

The Fed Ex guy didn't even get to the door. I met him on the front porch.

Lots of you know that I've been working on this novel, revising, refining. But for anyone who doesn't, here's the blurb:

 

Could a crackly phone call from France to Ohio save Fia Randolph’s jobless complications and family troubles? That’s what she hopes when her Uncle Martin asks Fia, her husband, and teenage twins to move to Provence and take over his bed and breakfast. She envisions long picturesque walks carrying crusty baguettes and bonding with the kids as they all learn French. But Fia didn’t bargain on the way Provence would tempt her teens and husband away from the family. Then Uncle Martin’s World War II secret wrenches her family further apart. Can Fia pull her family back together and help clear her uncle’s guilty conscience?

And where can you snatch up a copy of my book?

The paperback will be available on Amazon, but it isn't there yet. Right now, you can find it here. And if you type in the Code PLUMA by Oct. 5, you can get a 20 percent discount.

 

You can find it in ebook form for only $4.99 on Amazon for the Kindle here and on Barnes and Noble for the Nook here.

I'm so happy about my novel, that I can almost forget about my impending nose surgery tomorrow. But I'll fill you in on that later. Let me bask in the glory for a few more hours.

 



Cycling in France

I needed to write another post to get rid of the complaining post below, so I thought I'd focus on France again as part of Paris in July, thanks to the meme from Thyme for Tea and Bookbath
I'm enjoying the Tour de France on television in the mornings. I watch to see the countryside, but also get sucked into the drama of the racing. I cringe and look away at the crashes. Bicycling in France was one of my favorite vacations of all time.
In October 2002, Earl and I left the kids with my parents and went to France for 10 days. We rented bikes from Bourgogne Randonee in Burgundy. They delivered the bikes to Avignon in Provence for us where we began our tour. We traveled with saddlebags on the bikes and nothing else, so we really had to pack lightly.

This is me standing with the bikes. In the background on the left is the bridge from the famous song, Sur le Pont d'Avignon, and that's Avignon on the right behind me.

We had a very loose schedule planned on where we would stay each night. We pieced together some different bicycle routes from the book Bicycle Tours of France by Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks.  

The first day was the hardest for me. Maybe because of jet lag, but also because we didn't take any chocolate with us along the way on the 40-mile ride. I think we pictured stopping at a 7/11 type store to buy something to eat. Bad planning.

I need to scan this photo again to get it in
 the computer in a more usable form.

We rode across the Pont du Gard, a Roman adqueduct near Avignon and ended our day in Nimes. We had no hotel reserved, simply pulled into the center of the city on our bikes and went to the tourism office. They helped us find a hotel across the street from the Roman amphitheater. In spite of some rain, we made our way from city to city. One day when it was raining, we put our bikes on the train for a short ride to the next city. We also stayed in Arles, Salon de Provence and ended up in Aix en Provence where the brothers of Bourgogne Randonee retrieved the bicycles.
On the trip to Aix, we had lunch in a little village called Equilles. We could see Aix in the distance and we lingered over pork chops and green beans, along with glasses of rose. For some reason, we still consider that simple meal to be one of the best we've ever eaten. Maybe it was the fatigue, the ambience, the company.

This trip has been our high standard for vacations since then. We can't wait to move to France someday where we can take bike trips whenever we want.

Expensive Soap

When Grace came back from France in December, she brought an array of delicately scented soaps that she bought for 1 Euro each in the market in Aix en Provence.
We cherished each one. The olive oil soap bathing our dry winter skin. The lemon verbena with its sharp scent waking us in the mornings. The lavender soap soothing us with its calming fragrance. Those soaps are long gone now, so while walking through Trader Joe's, I stopped at the soap section and debated. The oatmeal soap was inexpensive. So was the honey soap, but I was lured in by the blue soap with bits of lavender added. $3.99 seemed a little pricey for 1 bar of soap, but I figured it was cheaper than a flight to France and visit to the market in Provence. So I bought it.

I did not anticipate the complaints from the men in my house. Little pieces of lavender left in the bathtub or that they needed to rinse off their bodies afterward apparently annoyed them. One of them even called the soap, "Hairy." So I stopped buying the lavender soap and switched to the honey or oatmeal.

Then Grace and I were at Trader Joe's yesterday, looking at soaps again. I looked longingly at the lavender soap, even picking it up to read the label "Bisous de Provence" which means kisses from Provence. Then I reluctantly replaced it on the shelf.

"I love that soap," I said.

"Me too," Grace said.

"Wait, I thought you hated it."

"No, that's just Dad and the boys. I say we get it and let them deal with it."

And we did. Now my morning shower involves the sweet scent of lavender, and an extra rinse at the end to remove the hairiness.

It's one way to bring a little of southern France to my life everyday -- without the expensive flight.

Bringing Provence Home

My blog friend Delana (pronounced De-lane-uh) just started a new store that sells rugs, trays, soap dishes and fluted bowls all in gorgeous Provencal fabric.
Yippeeee!
Christmas shopping issues solved. Everyone will be getting something from Provence Rugs for Christmas and anyone shopping for me can just take their pick from this website.
Look at these colors and designs. Look at this one called Eclat d'Orange. Yes, it is a burst of orange. And since I'm American, I can tell you the price is $45 because we don't consider it gauche to talk about prices! The rugs come in lovely colors like sky blue and poppy red and spring green. You'll have to visit the website to see.
The website says the rugs are handmade by French weavers.
And the trays are laminated fabric that you'll recognize because it is a traditional Provencal fabric. Can't you see serving sliced baguette in this fluted bowl? Oh, how about M&Ms then? Or tiny French chocolates - bonbons? The bowls are 6 1/2 inches and cost $13.50.
But now I have too much yellow and orange on the blog, so I'll need to break it up with some blue and green photos from Provence Rugs.
Here's a 9 1/2 by 9 1/2 divided tray. It costs $30.

And here's an assortment of the fabrics from the website:

Make sure you take a look.
Christmas is sneaking up sooner than you realize, and wouldn't it be lovely to walk up to your front door and see a lovely colored rug on one of those dreary February days.
Photos are from the website Provence Rugs. Obviously.