France BookTours -- That Spring in Paris

I can't imagine running to Paris for an emergency instead of for sheer pleasure, but that's what happens in That Spring in Paris by Ciji Ware.
The story is told through the eyes of Juliet, a graphic artist working for her brother's video game business so that she can help preserve the money her father invested in it, and Patrick, who recently left the military to heal from his PTSD even though his father, a lifetime military man, doesn't approve of that decision.
Juliet races to Paris after her best friend is injured during the November 2015 terrorist attacks. She physically runs into Patrick at the door to the hospital. Patrick is there to visit someone injured in the attack, too.
The two begin to build a relationship and to untangle the complications they live with because of family demands. The book changes locations between Paris and San Francisco mostly.
When I previewed this novel a few weeks ago, some people living in France thought it might be too soon to write about the terrorist attacks. I think the entire subject is handled delicately, and it doesn't exploit the devastation at all. The characters are struck with fear and PTSD every time another attack or scare arises and must heal again.
Although the story is set against the backdrop of the terrorist attacks, the real plot focuses on the love story of two people who have given in to the will of their families rather than focusing on what they want in life. They give each other the strength to move forward to reach their own goals.
Here's a quote from the book at 18% on Kindle:

He returned his gaze to the plate glass window just as the Eiffel Tower was suddenly illuminated with blinding brightness in shades of blue, white, and red.
"Oh, look!" Juliet exclaimed, swiveling in her seat on the sofa. "How beautiful! They've turned the lights back on in the colors of the French flag! Isn't that a good sign?"
The enormous structure's colorful outline was reflected in the water below it.
"It'll never look the same to me."
"No... not to you, it probably won't," she agreed. "Just like the space where the Twin towers once stood in Manhattan has never looked the same to New Yorkers...."

I realized after the attacks that the Eiffel Tower sat unlit, but I hadn't ever imagined how oppressive that might feel, to walk through the city at night without the twinkling lights, so when the lights came back on, it felt like a return to hope.
Even though the event that set the travel to Paris in motion was negative, Juliet found herself falling in love with Paris, as most everyone does. I enjoyed the descriptions of her discoveries in the richness of life.
I recommend this novel as a smart read with romance and deep dives into family issues along with the complications of war and violence.

Ciji Ware on Tour August 15-28 with

That Spring in Paris

(women’s fiction / romance) Release date: May 25, 2017 at Lion’s Paw Publishing ISBN: 978-0988940871 ebook: 978-0988940864 468 pages Website Goodreads

SYNOPSIS

Two Americans literally collide at the entrance to a Paris hospital, each desperately searching for friends felled in the same unspeakable tragedy. Patrick Finley Deschanel, an expatriate former U.S. Air Force pilot, quit the military after a career flying helicopter rescue missions in the Middle East. Now resident on a classic barge moored on the Seine, Finn is a man with both physical battle scars and psychic wounds that overshadow his day-to-day encounters at every turn. Juliet Thayer is a fledgling landscape painter who seeks escape from a tyrannical older brother and her job at his violent video war games company in San Francisco. Her emergency trip to Paris also raises doubts as to her impending engagement to a colleague where she serves as packaging design director and “Chief Branding Officer” of GatherGames, a highly speculative enterprise in which her parents are heavily invested. As Finn and Juliet form a tenuous attachment in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks that traumatized the French capital November 13, 2015, they wonder if the “City of Light” can provide a path out of the darkness for two emotional exiles who fear–along with the world at large—that their universe has descended into a permanent state of chaos and that the renewal of spring might never come. New York Times bestselling novelist and Emmy-award winning news producer Ciji Ware displays her formidable skill at weaving fact and fiction–delivering a gripping story about the discovery of love and regained serenity in the wake of horrifying events.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ciji Ware, a graduate of Harvard University in History, is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling author of historical and contemporary fiction, and two works of nonfiction. An Emmy-award winning former radio and TV broadcaster for 23 years in Los Angeles, her numerous writing accolades include a Dorothy Parker Award of excellence, and being short-listed for the Willa [Cather] Literary Award. Her family circle includes a husband of many decades, a grown son and daughter-in-law, and now two grandsons under four, along with a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Cholly Knickerbocker. Ware lives in a cottage by the sea on San Francisco Bay. Visit her website Follow her on Facebook and Twitter Buy the book: Amazon | B&N Nook | iBook | Kobo

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GIVEAWAY

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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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Online Book Tour & Free on Kindle

So in between traveling and teaching and keeping strong relationships with my family, I haven't been very good at promoting my books.
That's why I ventured into another online book promotion tour for Paris Runaway.

I've already received two new reviews of Paris Runaway, and I always love hearing what readers enjoy in my novels. It isn't so great when they don't like things, but I guess that's part of the learning process too.
Denise gave Paris Runaway a 5-star review on Goodreads. She said, "This highly entertaining novel is the perfect summer read." And it's officially summer here once Memorial Day arrives. And, maybe she knows this from her own life experience: "If you have ever fallen in love with a Frenchman, you will recognize how special it can be, as epitomized in Auguste."

Amy at Locks, Hooks, and Books blog also reviewed Paris Runaway and gave it 5 stars. She wrote, "It has a perfect combination I love in a story, some laughs, mystery, suspense, adventure, action, and romance. I highly recommend it!"

You can visit the tour at the link to see other upcoming stops.
And you can enter to win Kindle or paperback copies. If you don't want to take a chance on not winning, Paris Runaway is free on Kindle Sunday, May 28, through Tuesday, May 30.
So please, visit Amazon and download it. Let your friends know and have them download it. You never know when you're going to need a trip to Paris through the eyes of Sadie.

Tuesday Intros -- Abby's Journey

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 am reading Abby's Journey as part of a blog tour for the author Steena Holmes. I think they contacted me because of my love of travel, and the character Abby travels to Europe to experience the Christmas markets.
This story is about Abby whose mother died giving birth to her, and since Abby was premature, she has always had health issues. When her doctor gives her a clear bill of health, her grandmother whisks her away to Munich, Salzburg and Brussels so they can experience the Christmas markets, something Abby's mother always dreamed of doing.

Here's the intro, a prologue which is a letter from Claire, Abby's mother, to her husband, before she died:

Dear Josh,
I've written this letter a thousand times (okay that might be exaggerating just a little, but I have written it a few times now). At first, it was a list of parenting tips, because that's what I do, I write lists. And then you would read it and memorize it, because that's what you do to humor me.
But then I realized that I don't want the last letter I write to you to be solely a display of my inner control freak. But Josh, the list is a good one. It really is. So how about this -- I'll add it to the end of this letter on a separate sheet, so you can post it on the fridge or leave it on your desk, somewhere you can reference it when things get too hard.

 I'm also joining in with Teaser Tuesday which is a weekly bookish meme, hosted Ambrosia @The Purple Booker.
Here's my teaser from page 6, which is a letter to Abby from her mother:

"Don't be afraid to dream great things -- things you think are beyond your grasp.
Trust me. I know what I'm talking about. If I'd given up on my dream for a baby, you wouldn't be here. And honestly, I can't imagine that. 

What do you think?
I'll be reviewing this book on March 16 if you want to come back to see what I think.  

Selected Feature Review -- Paris Runaway

Yesterday, Kirkus Reviews Magazine notified me that a review for Paris Runaway had been "selected as a feature review."

That  means that way back on page 132, they include their thoughts about Paris Runaway -- which were good overall.
But in addition to the entire review, they included a quote from the review at the top of the page.

I love that they experienced Paris with Sadie and that my use of concrete language stood out.

The placement of the review might be only for the dedicated who thumb through the pages to the end, but I'm grateful to be included.
Here's the link for anyone who wants to visit. It's at the bottom of page 132, but here's how the review looks.

 It starts at the bottom of the page then jumps to the top of the next column

Thanks to Kirkus Review and to everyone who supports my writing. I'm grateful and hope you'll visit the page, as well as consider reading Paris Runaway.
Here's the link on Amazon for paperback or Kindle version. And if you have Amazon Prime with the books, you can probably read it free.

Tuesday Intros -- Vinegar Girl

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.

Last Friday, a gloriously sunny and breezy day, I found myself with two hours free between classes.
I decided to set off for the main library downtown. It was closed for more than a year and remodeled and I hadn't visited yet.
While there, I scooped up three books and have happily immersed myself in Vinegar Girl by Anne

Tyler.
Here's the intro:

Kate Battista was gardening out back when she heard the telephone ring in the kitchen. She straightened up and listened. Her sister was in the house, although she might not be awake yet. But then there was another ring, and two more after that, and when she finally heard her sister's voice it was only the announcement on the answering machine. "Hi-yee! It's us? We're not home, looks like? So leave a --"
By that time Kate was striding toward the back steps tossing her hair off her shoulders with an exasperated "Tech!" She wiped her hands on her jeans and yanked the screen door open. "Kate," her father was saying, "pick up."

This is apparently a modernized version of Taming of the Shrew. I'd say Kate is a bit "on the spectrum," not picking up emotional cues from others, like her father the scientist. I'm enjoying the book though.
Thanks for visiting and I look forward to seeing what  you are reading.

Blog Tours -- Paris Runaway

I'm busy forcing myself to write these last few weeks of July -- write novels that is, instead of blog posts. So I might not be around as much as I should, but you can read some blog posts by me and some Q&As, if you're interested, on FranceBookTours this week.

Just click on the banner to see the entire schedule. So far this week we've had spotlights, which means book bloggers are kind enough to run the banner, along with a bio of me and some information about my novel. And throughout the online blog tour, there are chances to enter a copy of my novel. So if you are hoping to win a copy, visit all the blogs and enter to win. So far, it has been 

A Holland Reads

Just One More Chapter

Fuonlyknew

Thursday will be another spotlight and chance to win at The Silver Dagger Scriptorium.

On Friday, you'll see an interview that really taxed my brain. I didn't notice until after I finished that the blogger said I could feel free to skip questions. Instead, I dug deep to come up with my scariest experience and how my first trips to France connected with early boyfriends. Well, on Friday you should visit Library of Clean Reads to see if you can read the entire interview. Make sure you leave a comment so I don't feel so alone.

The reviews begin this weekend, so I'll be sure to update you. 

Thanks to everyone for your support for Paris Runaway. So far, it's a favorite of many people who have read my other novels. 

If you don't want to wait to see if you won, you can find it available on ebook at Amazon, or in paperback at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. 

Now, I'd better get back to writing. 

Well, just a hint first, I'm working on a sequel to The Summer of France that's called Autumn in Aix. No secret from World War II this time, but an American with a plan to change the world wanders into Fia's bed and breakfast. Will she help protect more precious art or lose herself in her new French life?

Tuesday Intros -- Finding Fontainebleau

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 week, I'm reading Finding Fontainebleau by Thad Carhart. It's a memoir about an American boy growing up in Paris in the 1950s.

Here's the intro:

All these years later I can recall with keen precision the moment when the bottom dropped out, because that is exactly what it felt like: one moment we were flying, shaking a bit from turbulence, the next we were falling, in a calm, eerie quiet broken only by the sound of the four engines laboring uselessly. Then the air caught us again and it was bad: the plane pitched violently up and down, from side to side, every way imaginable. The passengers found their voice then, after the expectant dread of the free fall. This was active, maniacal horror, and people screamed. It was the first time I saw an adult -- many of them, in fact -- expressing fear without reserve. The woman across from us started to cry and yell, and there was nothing to be done but listen and watch with a kind of terrified fascination. 

This cliff-hanger opening leads to some calmer musings about life in post-war France and the experiences Carhart's family had adjusting to a move from suburban Virginia to Paris.

I look forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

I'm also connecting with Paris in July.

Tuesday Intros -- The Runaway Wife

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.

It's funny that the publisher contacted me about reviewing this novel, The Runaway Wife,  just as my own novel, Paris Runaway, was about to come out. I noted the similar title and the fact that they are both set in Europe.
I've read a book by this author, Elizabeth Birkelund, before and the writing blew me away, so it was an easy decision to read this one. The previous book I loved, also set in France, was The Dressmaker.  I'm about halfway through The Runaway Wife, so look for an upcoming review.

Here's the intro:

Jim Olsen, you are here. In Switzerland, walking on the rock ledges of the Swiss Alps. If this was not the end of the world, at least it felt like it. In this moonscape ten thousand feet high, in this land of rock and rock and more rock, and sky and sky and more sky, one misguided step and Jim could plunge from one of thousands of vertiginous, crusted cliffs. The only thing that reassured Jim that he was not on a planet in a far-flung galaxy was his ability, on this clear day, to pinpoint several small patches of green that resembled colored pieces in a stained-glass window -- these he knew to be farmland in the Swiss valley far, far below. 

I don't care for that first sentence where he's apparently speaking to himself in second person. I had to read it several times to figure it out, but the rest of the book is lovely.

I look forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

I'm also connecting with Paris in July.

Tuesday Intros -- Paris Runaway

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 suppose you couldn't technically say that I'm reading this novel, since I wrote it, but still taking the time to share the intro with everyone, in hopes that you'll want to read it.
This is a fast-paced, romance, adventure, women's fiction novel. I think that's enough descriptors.
Sadie flies to Paris to retrieve her 17-year-old daughter who pursued a French exchange student across the ocean. Joining forces with the boy's father, Sadie feels stirrings she'd tamped down since her divorce two years before. Sparks fly as the parents try to keep their children out of trouble, chasing them to Marseille and back to Paris again.

Here's the intro:

Marseille, FrancePrologue
A gust of hot wind from the open door made the gray floor churn. I stood on the threshold staring at the billowing surface as I tried to comprehend how a floor could move.
A stronger breeze followed, and feathers, gray feathers, the color of the concrete surface, swirled into the air and then wafted down to land gently.
“Feathers?” I asked. “Was there some sort of slumber party in here?”
When I walked through this door above a run-down carryout in Marseille, France, I had expected to see my daughter Scarlett, and I’d already practiced the speech I’d give her for running away, across the ocean to Paris and then gallivanting to the South of France. But the feathers threw me. No Scarlett – just feathers.

 I look forward to seeing what everyone else is reading and hope you'll add this one to your to-be-read list. Here's the link on Goodreads and on Amazon. The book becomes available on Thursday, and you can enter to win a copy on Goodreads, or click the link on the top right of this blog.

Tuesday Intros -- The Wood Witch

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 don't usually read fantasy, but this novella, The Wood Witch by Pepper Sparks, is set in the area
 where I went hiking last week, so I'm going to give it a try.
Here's the intro:

On a humid summer day in the Appalachian Mountains, Sadie Brown sat in a red booth at Finnegan's Diner with her son, Nicholas, sipping coffee and eating a piece of tart rhubarb pie. She watched the dark shadows boil in Red-Hawk pass, a growing plume threatening to consume the hollers and rifts around them. Sadie, a long-time resident of Richmond County, was the only person to see the rolling mass advancing upon Summerset, and a burnt odor permeated the sleepy town along a lonely mountain road name Black Lick.

I found this on Amazon for $2.99. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Tuesday Intros -- The Little French Guesthouse

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 on my Kindle that is very enjoyable. It's called The Little French Guesthouse by Helen Pollard. If I had to guess, I'd suppose that I found this book based on a post by French Village Diaries. Jacqui always stays up-to-date on the latest books set in France.
Emmy and her live-in boyfriend Nathan travel from London to rural France for a holiday at a B&B. As the book opens, Emmy runs to find the wife of the B&B couple because her husband is having a heart attack. What she finds is her boyfriend having sex with the wife.
The holiday obviously falls apart from there. The book has a lighthearted, chicklit tone as she deals with the end of her relationship and starts helping out at the B&B, immersing her in French life.
Here's the intro:

I wish I could tell you that it happened like it does in the movies. You know the kind of thing. The heroine standing proud, oozing restrained fury. The audience's satisfaction as she delivers a reverberating slap across her lover's face. Her dramatic but dignified exit from the screen.
Believe me, there was nothing dignified about it. All I did was stand there shaking, rage and adrenaline coursing through my body like rabid greyhounds, my mouth flapping open and shut as I tried to find the words. Any words. Even a simple sound of outrage would have sufficed, but all I managed was a pathetic squeak. 

I'll look forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

Tuesday Intros -- The Arrangement

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 found this book, The Arrangement by Ashley Warlick, at the library, and it looks like fun. Here's the intro.

She'd made it sound as though her husband would be joining them for dinner. She'd made it sound that way on purpose, and then she arrived alone, lifting her shoulders in a vague wifely gesture of disappointment, and maybe the gave the impression of upset. She'd thought about this moment since she learned Gigi would be out of town. She wanted Tim's attentions to herself for the evening, and she'd planned accordingly.
"I reminded Al a week ago," she said, "and then again this morning. I don't know what he's thinking half the time."
Tim leaned to kiss her cheek wrapped in his smoke, his trim dark suit, his sense of ease. His hair had always been white. "Well," he said. "Perhaps he'll join us later?"

Oh, my. Sounds a little dicey.
I'll look forward to seeing what you all are reading.

France Book Tours -- The Rivals of Versailles Book Review & Giveaway

I read Sally Christie's first novel in this series, The Sisters of Versailles, and it gave me a ring-side seat into life at Versailles under King Louis XV. This second book though, The Rivals of Versailles, plunged me straight into the intrigue of the King's most famous mistress, Madame Pompadour.
I really enjoyed this book and had trouble setting it aside for mundane things like work and cooking dinner for my family.
Maybe it helps that I didn't know the book was about Madame Pompadour. At the beginning, she was just Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, a middle-class girl at a fair when a fortune-teller predicted that she would some day be the mistress of the king. After that, her entire childhood was spent preparing her for that role.
Like any good historical fiction, the details are exquisite and the reader is swept into the halls of Versailles where women jockey for the king's favor and men use the women like pawns on a chess board to gain the ear of the king.
Jeanne must even resist the king's advances to make sure she can enter Versailles as his mistress rather than just another girl in the string of lovers pleasing the king. And the entire court is appalled that a non-royal woman becomes so powerful.
I won't give away the rest of the story, which some of you  might know if you've studied history, but I guarantee that you haven't seen it from this light before.

Here's a snippet of their first encounter:

I wait. And wait. Clouds threaten and an insistent breeze heralds a coming storm. It must not rain. It must not. Please, God. My nerves are frayed as the wind whips the ribbons on my hat. Please, no rain.
Then the sound of hooves to mimic the pounding of my heart. Binet canters out of the forest, followed by another man. That it is the king I have no doubt: his face is at once both wonderful and familiar.
...
"Sire, might I introduce you? The Comtesse d'Etoilles."
"Madame d'Etiolles," says the king, bringing his horse up alongside my chaise. "So, Binet, this is the doe you thought had come this way." His voice is low and husky, the tone amused. "Delightful."
"Indeed, Sire, this is the lady that is enchanting Paris, as well as these forests."
"And I can see why. A singular beauty," murmurs the king, looking at me with intense dark eyes. I am staring at him with an openmouthed gape. The face I gazed upon constantly...he is even more handsome than his portrait."  

 I enjoyed this novel even more than the first and will give it five stars on Amazon and Goodreads.

Sally Christie

on Tour April 5-14 with

The Rivals of Versailles

(historical fiction) Release date: April 5, 2016 at Atria Books/Simon & Schuster 448 pages ISBN: 978-1501102998 Website | Goodreads  

SYNOPSIS

In this scandalous follow-up to Sally Christie’s clever and absorbing debut, we meet none other than the Marquise de Pompadour, one of the greatest beauties of her generation and the first bourgeois mistress ever to grace the hallowed halls of Versailles. The year is 1745. Marie-Anne, the youngest of the infamous Nesle sisters and King Louis XV’s most beloved mistress, is gone, making room for the next Royal Favorite. Enter Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, a stunningly beautiful girl from the middle classes. Fifteen years prior, a fortune teller had mapped out young Jeanne’s destiny: she would become the lover of a king and the most powerful woman in the land. Eventually connections, luck, and a little scheming pave her way to Versailles and into the King’s arms. All too soon, conniving politicians and hopeful beauties seek to replace the bourgeois interloper with a more suitable mistress. As Jeanne, now the Marquise de Pompadour, takes on her many rivals—including a lustful lady-in-waiting; a precocious fourteen-year-old prostitute, and even a cousin of the notorious Nesle sisters—she helps the king give himself over to a life of luxury and depravity. Around them, war rages, discontent grows, and France inches ever closer to the Revolution. Enigmatic beauty, social climber, actress, trendsetter, patron of the arts, spendthrift, whoremonger, friend, lover, foe. History books may say many things about the famous Marquise de Pompadour, but one thing is clear: for almost twenty years, she ruled France and the King’s heart.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sally Christie is the author of The Sisters of Versailles. She was born in England and grew up around the world, attending eight schools in three different languages. She spent most of her career working in international development and currently lives in Toronto. Learn more about the sisters and the mistresses in the Versailles trilogy on her website Become a fan to hear about her next novels! Visit her Facebook Page Check her Pinterest page

Follow Simon & Schuster on Twitter and Facebook

Buy the book | on Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-a-Million | IndieBound

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You can enter the global giveaway here or on any other book blogs participating in this tour. Be sure to follow each participant on Twitter/Facebook, they are listed in the entry form below.

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 US residents only: 5 participants will each win a print copy of this book.

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Tuesday Intros - Love From Paris

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.
Alexandra Potter wrote Love From Paris about a young Brit who is stood up by her American

boyfriend on her birthday so she goes to stay with a friend in Paris.
Here's the opening:

OK, calm down, it's got to be here somewhere.Rushing around my bedroom, I grab hold of my make-up bag and start rifling through it. Which of course is completely futile. I mean, is it just me, or does anyone ever pu a lip gloss in their make-up bag? It's always stuffed in a coat pocket gathering fluff. Or lost in a random handbag. Or stuck down the back of the sofa, top off, smearing pink gloop everywhere...

This book is definitely chick lit, which I enjoy many times. I'm a little worried because the next step is the friend in Paris representing an apartment that has been  untouched for 60 years, which is what The Paris Apartment was about. This is obviously a different take on it.
Hope you're reading something fun.

Tuesday Intros -- Interior Designs

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 week I'm starting a book by one of our fellow bloggers.  Laurel-Rain Snow. The book is Interior Designs. Here's the intro:

When I woke up, my thoughts sifted through my mind slowly, like pieces of a dream. I could feel the sun through the spaces in the blinds, and I gradually saw my surroundings -- my pink and white floral Laura Ashley spread, the matching shams, and other assorted pillows -- and that normally blissful feeling started to descend. And then something jarred me fully awake. I sat up slowly, and the heavy cloak of despair fell down around my shoulders. My now-familiar life began to take shape.
When had my world morphed into this despair that seemed to follow me into every waking moment? Why did my sleep bring my only peace these days?

 I look forward to reading Laurel's novel.

Tuesday Intros -- The Rivals of Versailles

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 reviewing The Rivals of Versailles by Sally Christie for FranceBookTours in April, just a few days after the book debuts on April 6. I previously reviewed The Sisters of Versailles, about five sisters who all became the mistress of King Louis XV. Here's my review for that one.
I'm only about a third of the way into this second book of the trilogy, but this one is even more gripping. Here's the intro:

The gypsy's hair is as red as blood, I think in astonishment. She catches me staring and starts, rabbit-like, as though she recognizes me. But she does not, and I certainly don't know anyone quite so dirty.
"I please you not to touch me," I say as she comes toward me, but still there is something familiar abut her. My mother bustles over, carrying a pastry in the shape of a  pig, and pulls me back from the grimy woman.
"Just look at those perfect eyes," says the woman. She takes my hand, a coarse brown mitt over my own, and I smell a mix of smoke and sweat. "A heart-shaped face. She is as pretty as a miracle, though no wonder with such a handsome mother. I'll you her fortune."

Hope you're reading something wonderful  too.

Tuesday Intros -- The Chocolate Temptation

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.
Reading one of Laura Florand's chocolate books is a bit like eating a box of chocolates. It's probably not the best thing for me, but it feels so good at the time. And they're usually set in France, so that's a bonus. French chocolates.
 I'm starting The Chocolate Temptation by Laura Florand. Sarah is an American intern in a Paris pastry kitchen and she hates then loves Patrick, one of the chefs.

She hated him. Tossing around dessert elements as if they were juggling balls he had picked up to idle away the time and, first try, had dozens flying around his body in multiple figure eights. Patrick Chevalier. Sarah hated him with every minute painstaking movement with which she made sure a nut crumb lay exactly the way Chef Leroi wanted it on a fnancier. She hated him with every flex of tendons and muscles in her aching hands in the evening, all alone in her tiny Paris apartment at the approach to Montmartre, knowing someoe else was probably letting him work the tension out of his own hands any way he wanted.

Unfortunately, the last book I read by Florand spent too much time in the characters' heads. I hope this one gets me out of their heads and into Paris.

Tuesday Intros -- Moonlight Over Paris

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 picked up this book after I saw it reviewed on someone else's blog. Of course, it's set in Paris!

Moonlight Over Paris was written by Jennifer Robson. Apparently it's set in post-war France (World War I) and the main character, Lady Helena, after a broken engagement, decides to move in with an aunt in Paris and live a bohemian lifestyle.  Here's the intro:

Helena had heard, or perhaps she had read somewhere, that people on the point of death were insensible to pain. Enveloped in a gentle cloud of perfect tranquility, all earthly cares at an end, they simply floated into oblivion.
It was rubbish, of course, for she was in agony. Pain seized at her throat and ears, so fierce and corrosive that she could sleep only when they drugged her, and even then it chased her from one nightmare to the next. She hurt from her scalp to her fingernails to the soles of her feet,, and despite that very real reminder of her state among the living, she knew the truth, too -- she was dying. 

Although I haven't read any further, I'll give you a spoiler that I think she survives because that's what the book is about.
I look forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

Tuesday Intros -- A Star for Mrs. Blake

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've started giving away books set in France, as you can see by the post on the right side of my blog, and as I looked through books, I found one that I hadn't read. It's called A Star for Mrs. Blake by April Smith and I won it in a giveaway. The book, set in 1931, focuses on five women, gold-star mothers whose sons died in World War I, who travel together to the American Cemetery in France.

Cora Blake was certainly not planning on going to Paris that spring. Or ever in her lifetime. She was the librarian in a small town on the tip of an island off the coast of  Maine, which didn't mean she'd never traveled. She did spend two years at Colby College in Waterville and visited family in Portland, went to Arizona once, and if you counted yachting, knew most of the New England coast. Her mother had been the great adventurer, married to a sea captain who'd taken her all around the world. Cora was born off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, which might account for her venturesome spirit, but now she roamed only in books. Summer people from North Carolina and Boston would stop by the quaint old library building to chat, and wonder how she could stand to live in such a tiny place with those terrible winters.
"I have everything I want right on the island," she'd say. "We're so off the beaten path, you've got to be satisfied with the way it is."

 I'm not crazy about this opening, but I'll give the book a chance. Any novel that takes me to France might win my heart.

Teaser Tuesday -- In Another Life

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 another French book to read. This one is titled In Another Life by Julie Christine Johnson and I'll be reviewing it for FranceBookTours, although I'm not sure of the day, some time in February because the book is scheduled to be released on Feb. 2.
After becoming a widow, historian Lia Carrer travels to southern France where she falls in love and becomes entangled in an old murder.
This book is set in Languedoc, the area that my husband and I hope to move to, so I'm looking

forward to this read.
Here's the intro:

Eighteen months after her husband's death, Lia Carrer returned to Languedoc like a shadow in search of light. From inside the airport terminal's glass atrium, the gray blanket over Paris looked no different from the Seattle sky she'd left behind. But the City of Light was not her final destination. The high-speed train known as the TGV departed directly from Charles de Gaulle and would carry her five hundred miles south to Narbonne in fewer than five hours.
Once aboard the TGV, Lia sank into her reserved window seat. Echoes of jet engines and loudspeakers reverberated in her head, but the sounds of train travel -- doors opening and closing with a pnuematic whoosh, air slamming between passing cars -- reassured her that her journey was nearly over. She was back on solid ground. Soothed by the slight swaying motion of the moving train. Lia gazed out the window and allowed France to absorb her. 

I really like this opening and hope the rest of the book sucks me in too.
I'm looking forward to finding out what you're reading.
I'm doing a book giveaway each week. Scroll down to enter for a chance to win A Paris Apartment this week. The drawing will be Sunday.