Book Review -- The Runaway Wife

The Runaway Wife by Elizabeth Birkelund transported me to a world I've never visited, to an oasis high in the Swiss Alps where a woman can be her true self, unworried about the world.
The book begins with Jim, an overworked financial investor who hasn't had a vacation in 8 years taking a vacation with a friend. They hike in the Swiss Alps and at a remote hut, they meet three

sisters who entice them to search for the women's lost mother. The mother was raised in the Alps, but she has never stayed gone so long. They fear for her safety with snow coming. She also happens to be the wife of a man running for the presidency in France. The press recently revealed that man had a mistress and a baby, so the wife disappeared. Every day, the man sent a helicopter into the Alps searching for his wife so he could bring her home.
Jim decides to take up the challenge, and what he finds changes his life and his dreams.
Here's an excerpt:

The melodic singing drew closer but was interrupted by a long, drawn-out cough. Jim had not noticed her coughing yesterday. He looked out the window. She was hanging laundry -- sheets, lingerie, a long white nightgown -- on a clothesline. Her slim body weaved in and out of the laundry so that he could never see more than a part of her at any time.
...
He could not resist returning to the window for one more glimpse of Calliope's dance among the billowing sheets and clothing. She looked like a woman at sea amid the sails of a ship.

And later, the beauty of the Alps is reiterated.

He'd heard the term Alpenglow,  but this was the first time he'd witnessed it. The enormous bowl of the sky was lit from below by the amber light of the setting sun. The few snowfields nestled inside crevices in distant peaks glowed a deep mauve.

Doesn't that make you want to see it yourself? It does for me.
The entire time that the characters were hiding in the Alps, I wanted to be there to experience it myself. Very beautifully written.

As an author myself, I've been warned about the squishy middle of a book, the part that makes reader drop a novel and not pick it up again, but Birkelund does not have that problem. The middle of her book is enthralling.
The beginning of the book could have been stronger to lure readers into that middle, but I promise that if you stick with it a few chapters, you'll be rewarded.

FranceBookTours -- The 6:41 to Paris

It's always interesting to read a book written by a French author and translated into English. The gap between what an American author writes and what a French author writes seems huge. So little physical action can happen in a French book, yet encapsulate countries and decades.

The 6:41 to Paris is written by Jean-Philippe Blondel and translated by Alison Anderson. It's named after the train to Paris that Cécile catches on a Monday morning after she spent the weekend visiting her parents' home in rural France. A man she once dated, 27 years before, comes down the aisle and sits next to her. 
Their inner monologues cover the relationship, the breakup and the lives they've led since then before they finally speak to each other. 

No one every warned us that life would be long.Those easy slogans that make your heart beat faster, like "carpe diem" or "die young" -- all that stuff was just nonsense. No one told us, either, that the hardest thing would not be breaking up, but decay. The disintegration of relationships, people, tastes, bodies, desire. Until you reach a sort of morass where you no longer know what it isyou love. Or hate. And it's not as unpleasant a condition as you might think. It's just lifelessness. With scattered spots of light.

I like the description of these thoughts, but I'm terrified that I could end up like these two! Their feelings for each other, their thoughts about the lives they've led are sad.

But Cécile has done more with her life than Philippe. She has less to regret but a stronger since of hatred and embarrassment.

I have this boldness in me. Deep-rooted. I stifled it for years, smothered it to keep it buried, but it comes out with the explosiveness of a champagne cork whenever I feel a certain pressure, the way I did then. Now I know how to use it to my advantage. It's very useful in meetings, negotiations, sales contracts. Sometimes it makes my colleagues or competitors blush, but basically they like to see a display of nerve. A sharpness of tone. The sharp edge of the guillotine. 

This book has some lovely writing and delves deep into relationships left behind.

Jean-Philippe Blondel was born in 1964 in Troyes, France where he lives as an author and English teacher. His novel The 6:41 to Paris has been a bestseller in both France and Germany.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Alison Anderson is a novelist and translator of literature from French. Among the authors she has translated are JMG Le Clézio, Christian Bobin, Muriel Barbery and Amélie Nothomb. She has lived in Northern California and currently lives in a village in Switzerland.

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First Chapter, Teaser Tuesday -- Here I Go Again

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 Here I Go Again by Jen Lancaster. I don't think I've read anything by her before.
Here's the intro from Chapter One:

Oh, honey, no.

I scan the woman's outfit up and down. A thong-bottom leotard worn over neon tights? With high-top Reeboks? Seriously? I'm sorry, were you possessed by the ghost of  1983?

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays. Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Open to a random page of your current read and share a teaser sentence from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers:
Here's mine from page 32:

I feel a twist in my stomach, maybe from nerves. Of course, that could just be Mamma's gumbo. That woman does not skimp on the andouille.

 I'm not sure. What do you think?