Dreaming of France -- Traveling in France Blog

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.

A few weeks ago when my uncle died, I reconnected with his son, my cousin John. We are two of 27 cousins stretched over a wide range of ages and have never really known each other.
I knew John and his wife, Lynn, lived in West Palm Beach, Florida, and he worked as a judge. And they knew a few things about me, like my novels and the fact that I love France. They had scheduled a trip to France the week after my uncle's funeral. So we friend-ed each other on Facebook and I discovered that John writes a blog while they travel in France. I've had fun getting to learn about their travels and their interests on John's blog, so I thought I'd share it with you.
They've been in France two weeks and have one more week. The current name of the blog will tell you about their travels. It's called "2016 Loire Valley and Burgundy, France."

John and Lynn have said they began writing the blog so that John's mother, my Aunt Esther, could keep up with their travels.
They've written 15 blog posts, beginning with their their plans and moving on to their flight from Miami  to Paris, a harrowing trip in a rental car from CDG to Orly to pick up their friends. Then they traveled on to Fontainebleau.
They've seen horse shows and chateaus; markets and baguettes.
John loves bicycling so he has hit the road a number of times, taking blog readers along on his adventures.
The blog is filled with pictures and history and views of Americans traveling in France.
Hope you'll take the time to pick a random blogpost to read.

Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France today. Please leave your name and blog address in Mr. Linky below, and leave a comment letting me know what  you think about my love affair with France, or your own passion for the country and its people and cultures. Also consider visiting the blogs of others who play along so we can all share the love.

Dreaming of France -- Books Set in France

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.

When I wrote my first book set in France, I had a hard time finding any novels or memoirs that took place in France. I'd been seduced by Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence, and I wanted to read more books that took me to Paris or Provence.
Since then, the field has become much more crowded, but I'm not complaining about it. I enjoy reading so many books with France as the backdrop, even as I continue to write my own novels.
Linda Kovic-Skow, author of the memoir French Illusions, has started a page on Goodreads called The Francophiles Group. It provides a place for French lovers to talk about books they've read and also offers book giveaways. This week, my novel, The Summer of France is available.
So if you're a member of Goodreads (and if you love to read, you should be), then you can join The Francophile Group. And while you're there, feel free to sign up to win a copy of The Summer of France. If you've already read it, then just go back later this month for another giveaway.

The banner on The Francophiles Group banner changes as new books are added. 

So if you love France and you love reading books set in France, join us on Goodreads. 

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. I'd love it if you'd stick with me as I begin to prepare for my own move to France in less than a year and a half. 

Dreaming of France, Paris in July -- Two Book Reviews

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

This week, I finished reading two books set in France, so I thought I'd review them for you, to save you from having to read them.
 I devour books set in France. Starting with Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence, I fell for the memoir or novel that takes place in France, letting me travel there through an author's words.
The stories for the two books I read were fine, but the books didn't paint word pictures to take me to France.

First I read a memoir called One Day Ahead: A Tour de France Misadventure by Richard Grady. I've been following the Tour de France bike race that past two weeks, and this book promised to take me inside the trials of covering all those miles by bike. The author didn't ride the tour roads, though. He was support for a friend and three other guys who decided to ride each leg of the Tour de France on the day before the actual racers rode them. Throughout the trip, the author was miserable. I couldn't figure out why he was doing it. The story itself seemed entertaining, but the writing focused more on getting from the beginning to the end than it did on transporting the reader to France. I missed the beautiful setting, the scrumptious food, the charming people, and instead, I got stuck in a motorhome with someone who hated the entire trip. He drank a lot of tea and got drunk on wine a couple of times. If you love bicycling and are curious about how much it takes to support someone on the Tour de France, then you should read this one.
The second book I read was, I think, a novel called Home by Jacqueline Mason. In this one, a British woman, Jen, meets a

Frenchman when she and her boring boyfriend Bradley go to stay with him on vacation. Before the reader can blink an eye, she moves to France to live with the perfect physical specimen of a Frenchman, Scott. She sees signs that he is controlling and stubborn, along with stingy and cheap. She doesn't get along with his parents, and he has a lot of problems with her parents. Nevertheless, the two marry. Right up to the actual wedding, I keep thinking she'll back out of it, but she doesn't. And things only get worse before she is able to rescue herself.
Again, Jen doesn't really enjoy all of the things I love about France, which is kind of the point of reading a book set in France. This book also has a number of copyediting errors, like run-on sentences or incorrect paragraphing on dialogue.
The plot kept me reading, but the author could have painted word pictures to put me in the scenes rather than simply telling me about what happened.
I'm starting The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain next. Hopefully, I'll enjoy that one.
 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.
I'm also connecting with Paris in July.

Tuesday Intros -- Act of God

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 not sure why this little book, Act of God by Jill Ciment, appealed to me, but I hope it's good. Here's the intro:

The twins suspected it was alive, but they weren't exactly sure if it was plant or animal.
Edith, white-haired and older by seventeen minutes, went to find a flashlight while Kat,

blond with white roots, knelt to take a closer look. A small phosphorescent organism, about as bright and arresting as a firely's glow, bloomed in the seam of the hall closet. It almost looked as if someone had chewed a piece of iridescence and stuck it, like gum, on the wall. But it wasn't inanimate like gum; its surface was roiling as if something beneath were struggling to be born. Kat tried to call Edith back to be assured that she wasn't imagining things, but Kat was struck dumb. A swell rose out of the glow until the head of whatever was fighting to get born pushed through, a fleshy bud, about the size of a newborn's thumb. Kat gasped. Her breath must have disturbed the new life, or awakened it, because a puff of spores sprayed out, luminous and ephemeral as glitter. The closet housed their mother's archives, the original letters from her advice column, the earliest dating back to the nineteen fifties, when Consultations with Dr. Mimi was first syndicated. All they needed was for spores to land on one of the file boxes and start feasting on the invaluable old papers inside. 

I look forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

Dreaming of France -- A Step Toward France

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.

Last week, I had an epiphany. I teach English at American universities. I could probably teach English at French universities.
I talked it over with Earl, and he said I should give it a shot. If I got a job in France, he'd continue with his job here so that the whole family could have health insurance and we could get the boys through college.
So I set to work creating a resume and cover letter in French, or as the French call it, a CV and lettre de motivation.
Luckily, I had some friends to turn to for help. Delana, who is American and moved to Aix en Provence about five years ago, sent me copies of her French resume and letter. I was able to follow the format to create my own.
Then I called on Linda from Frenchless in France, and she asked her husband Maurice to proofread the letter and resume. He helped change the format some and corrected my abysmal French mistakes.
Before you knew it, I was at the post office, paying $26 to mail my letter to France. I've applied for three university jobs to teach English. Who knows if anything will come of it, but it gives me a few weeks of hope.
Here's a smidgen of my French CV:

Objectif 
Enseigner l’anglais dans une université française. Ma langue maternelle est l'anglais et j'ai une connaissance de base du français.

If I'm writing my blog from France in September, you'll know that I got a job. 

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.

Tuesday Intros -- Monday's Lies

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 home sick today, but I have to drag myself into work this evening. I hope that I'll just be able to relax and read, but I might force myself to grade papers instead.
I hadn't  heard anything about this book, but it's kind of intriguing. It skips back and forth between the narrator's childhood with a mom who is, apparently, in the CIA, and her current life with suspicions about her husband cheating. It's called Monday's Lie by Jamie Mason.
Here's the intro:

It's funny what you remember about terrible things.
The scattered shards were far more beautiful than the crystal lamp they'd been an hour before. The clearest night sky had nothing on the flicker and shine strewn across the black canvas bag that lay at the foot of the stairs. The industrious back-and-forth of the man's shadow tricked the shimmer into life with his every pass. 

Hope you're reading something that you love.

Dreaming of France -- We Come Bearing Gifts

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 love having French friends. They teach us so much about the country we love. They give us good food and a place to stay whenever we visit. They've showed us so many fascinating things and popped the cork on numerous bottles of wine.

On our upcoming visit, we aren't staying with our friends, but they are going to meet us in Paris to celebrate our friend Danuta's birthday.
I have the hardest time figuring out what presents to take someone who is French when I visit from the United States. On our last visit, we hadn't planned to stay with them so I didn't take a present. When we went at the last minute, I bought macarons from Lauduree. The whole family loved them, of course, because they are French.
So here's my latest idea for a present.
What if I make copies of photos of our families from each of the 9 visits we shared in France? I can put the photos in a photo album and give it to her for her birthday.

 But I don't know. I'm too close to it. Is that a good idea for a gift for a French friend? Does anyone have some better ideas? I'm running out of time.
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please visit each other's blog so you can share the joy with other Francophiles.

Saturday Snapshot -- Sunrise

Join West Metro Mommy for this weekly meme of photos people have taken and share on their blogs. Here's mine:
Visiting my parents in Florida, one of my favorite things is going on morning runs and seeing the sunrise.
Of course, this time of year, the best thing about my morning runs is the weather compared to the weather at home.
Today the thermometer is supposed to climb to 79.
So here are a few sunrise shots from my first run in Florida

This is the scene that greeted me. It always looks a little prehistoric to me with the trees and the mist. The moon was just a sliver. 

This picturesque scene with the palm trees and the moon reminded me of my painter friend Leah. So I stopped my run again and took a photo. 

Hope everyone has a lovely holiday, whichever one you celebrate. 

Tuesday Intros -- An Age of License, A Travelogue

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 busy grading final papers this week, but I'm anticipating lots of time for reading over the next few weeks.

Here's a book I picked up at the library. An Age of License, A Travelogue by Lucy Knisley. The book includes drawings and is in a hand-written font. The publisher calls it "a graphic travelogue and a journal of her trip abroad." She is also the author of French Milk, which I have read. Hope I like this one. Here's the intro:

2011
...was a year of travel! Through coincidence, work, and luck, I was offered opportunities to take trips. I took as many as possible. Recovering from heartbreak, I was determined to spend my travels having adventures and being a free agent. Some trips are more than distance traveled in miles. Sometimes travel can show us how our life is. Or give us a glimpse of how it can be...
Being untethered, I could float away, lifed to a great height where everything is new and I could look back on my life with new perspective, and go, "Oh!"

Here's her plan when she began her travels. Notice that they focus around France.

Apparently, she falls in love right away! Wonder if it'll stick.

I look forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

First Paragraph -- Fast-Pitch Love

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 a young adult novel written by a colleague of mine, Clay Cormany, and I surprised myself by getting drawn into it. I can't wait to continue reading.
It's told from the perspective of a high school boy, Jace, who has a crush on an unattainable girl and the lengths he goes to in hopes of winning her. He volunteers to help coach a softball team that his little sister is on because he thinks the girl will also be an assistant coach.

Clay told me the publisher, Astraea Press, insisted the book be very innocent, so this might be a title some of you would consider for young teenagers or older who want to read about love without a lot of swear words or gratuitous sex.
The book opens with the unattainable girl's boyfriend intimidating other boys who might think of asking her out.

Here's the intro:

The skinny student recoiled from the push, his back thumping into the wall behind him. His books fell to the floor as he raised his hands to block the punch that seemed imminent.
"Don't hit me, Carson," the student pleaded. "I didn't mean anything by it."
Carson Ealy, all two hundred thirty pounds of him, loomed over the frightened student like a hungry bear. "How can you say you 'didn't mean anything by it'?" he snarled. "You asked her out, didn't you?"

I'm deep into this romance and wondering what else might go wrong for Jace.
Hope you'll give it a try. You can find it online at Amazon for $4.99. 

Also this week, Sandra Nachlinger is featuring my novel Trail Mix on her blog Writing With a Texas Twang. Here's part of her comments:

Right now I'm about 60% of the way into the story, experiencing the Smoky Mountains through the characters' eyes and having a great time... all without aching muscles or blisters on my toes.

Hope you'll stop by and see what she has to say too.

First Paragraph -- One Plus One

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.
Here's the latest from Jojo Moyes, One Plus One.
I never know whether to start with the prologue, but here it is.

Ed Nicholls was in the creatives' room drinking coffee with Ronan when Sidney walked in. A man he vaguely recognized stood behind him, another of the Suits.
"We've been looking for  you," Sidney said.
"Well, you found us," Ed said.
"Not Ronan, you."
Ed studied them for a minute then threw a red foam ball at the ceiling and caught it. He glanced sideways at Ronan. Investacrop had bought half shares in the company a full eighteen months ago, but Ed and Ronan still thought of them as the Suits. It was one of the kinder things they called them in private.

Hope this is a good one.

France Book Tours -- 100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go

Do you think every woman has a natural connection to France? There's just something about it that draws people, especially women. And author Marcia DeSanctis taps into that attraction with her book 100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go. 
This is the kind of book that should be savored slowly, enjoying each chapter as an individual visit, like one delicate piece from a whole box of French chocolates.
I'm already enamored of France, and I've visited nearly a dozen times, but the author found places that I had never discovered and now I can't wait to see them.
The book begins in Paris, and the author could probably have come up with all 100 places within Paris, but she does make herself limit the sites in Paris so that she could venture to the rest of France.
Some of the stories describe the sights and sounds of places. Others include personal stories that help bring the places to life.
Here's an excerpt from Chapter 31, La Croisette, Cannes.

When I was eighteen, I spent the summer in a flat on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. One day my sister and I took the train up the coast to try the beach at Cannes. While she went to stake a spot on one of the public beaches, I decided to wander La Croisette, the fabled avenue of movie-star struts. There was not much money in my crocheted purse, but I was sporting a deep Cote d'Azur tan and help myself high as one must do to blend into the luxury. I had already learned that lesson in France: whatever you do, act like you belong there. Walk tall and whisper. 

So what all does she include? I can hear you asking. You wonder if the places you love in France were also chosen by the author. I can't list 100 places in France, must less explain the importance of each. I will tell you that she begins with the Parc de Bagatelle then moves onto the Rodin Museum, and who even knew there was a Museum of Edith Piaf? Markets, swimming pools, churches, restaurants, and lingerie stores help round out the Paris list before the author ventures throughout the rest of France.
If you're ready for a journey to France for real, or just on the page, go ahead and pick up this book and to accompany Marcia De Sanctis. She'll help you find some amazing places.

 Here's a synopsis from the author:
Told in a series of stylish, original essays, 100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go is for the serious Francophile, for the woman dreaming of a trip to Paris, and for those who love crisp stories well-told. Like all great travel writing, this volume goes beyond the guidebook and offers insight not

only about where to go but why to go there. Combining advice, memoir and meditations on the glories of traveling through France, this book is the must-have in your carry-on when flying to Paris.

Award-winning writer Marcia DeSanctis draws on years of travels and living in France to lead you through vineyards, architectural treasures, fabled gardens and contemplative hikes from Biarritz to Deauville, Antibes to the French Alps. These 100 entries capture art, history, food, fresh air and style and along the way, she tells the stories of fascinating women who changed the country’s destiny. Ride a white horse in the Camargue, find Paris’ hidden museums, try thalassotherapy in St. Malo, and buy raspberries at Nice’s Cour Saleya market. From sexy to literary, spiritual to simply gorgeous, 100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go is an indispensable companion for the smart and curious traveler to France.

About the author:
Marcia DeSanctis is a former television news producer for Barbara Walters, NBC and CBS News.

She has written essays and articles for numerous publications including Vogue, Marie Claire, Town & Country, O the Oprah Magazine, Departures, and The New York Times Magazine.
Her essays have been widely anthologized and she is the recipient of three Lowell Thomas Awards for excellence in travel journalism,
as well as a Solas Award for best travel writing.
She holds a degree from Princeton University in Slavic Languages and Literature and a Masters in Foreign Policy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Visit her website. Follow her on Facebook, and Twitter and
Buy the book: Amazon, upcoming on Travelers’ Tales.
Residents of the U.S. can enter to win a paperback copy of the book.

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First Chapter, First Paragraph -- The Sharp Hook of Love

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 have been reading so many France books this month, but here is another one. The Sharp Hook of

Love by Sherry Jones is a retelling of the love story of Heloise and Abelard from 12th century Paris.
Here's the intro:

I was born in silence,  my wails quieted by the hand of the only friend my mother could trust. In silence I spent most of my youth, amid the nuns of Argenteuil floating through the dark abbey without sound, as though we lived under the sea. Only in my dreams did I dance, laughing with my mother in the sun, her voice like water, her kisses like dew falling on my cheek. I would awaken with tears instead, and an ache like hunger that never subsided. 

Heloise is a female scholar, hoping to become an abbess before she is wooed by the foremost scholar, Abelard, and the two of them begin a love affair that is doomed.
Hope you all are reading something that ignites your passions.

First Paragraph -- French Leave

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.
Yes, I'm still obsessed with France, even though my most recent novel takes place in the U.S.
Here's a novel by P.G. Wodehouse called French Leave about 3 American sisters who go on vacation in France, leaving behind their chicken farm on Long Island.

What?
A chicken farm on Long Island?
The print in this book is really small, though, so I  might have to break out my reading glasses for the first time for this one. Here's the intro:

If you search that portion of the state of New York known as Long Island with a sufficiently powerful magnifying glass,  you will find, tucked away on the shore of the Great South Bay, the tiny village of Bensonburg. Its air is bracing, its scenery picturesque, its society mixed. You get all sorts there -- the rich in their summer homes -- men like Russell Clutterbuck, the publisher -- and mingled with them the dregs or proletariat, the all-the-year-rounder-ers who have to scrape for a living. The Trent girls, daughters of the late Edgar Trent, the playwright, did their scraping in a small farm at the bottom of one of the lanes that led down to the water.