FranceBook Tours review: Lost in Lavender

There's nothing like a worldwide pandemic to send me reaching for some novels to help me escape, and that's just what I did with this novel Lost in Lavender by Lise McClendon. 

Lise McClendon

is back! on Tour October 20-November 2 with  

Lost in Lavender is one of 13 books the author has written about five sisters who have a love affair with France, and a few international men as well. This book, which can stand alone, focuses on the sisters Merle and Elise. Merle lives in France full time in an ancient village, while Elise, the youngest, signs up for a work experience on a lavender farm in Provence. Haven't we all dreamed of working in France, picking grapes or cutting lavender or smashing olives into oil? Apparently, it's not as easy an experience as one might imagine, but even that, the author manages to make romantic. The idea of tired muscles and warm baths with the scent of lavender makes it all seem worthwhile. Plus the handsome tractor driver turns out to be a distraction as well. 

The action in the novel takes readers across the country from Bordeaux to Provence, offering a chance to travel that we haven't had this summer. The descriptions of the scenery are just lovely:

The lavender fields were in full bloom, stretching in endless, bumpy rows toward the horizon. The purple was so vivid, as alive as blood in veins, the blossoms shivering in the wind. 

If the beauty of the landscape, the allure of the French language, and a bit of international romance weren't enough to pull you, there's a mystery as well that the sisters must extricate themselves from. 

If you're looking for a fun trip when you can't go anywhere, pick up Lost in Lavender. 

    

Lost In Lavender

(mystery/women’s fiction) Release date: October 15, 2020 at Thalia Press 254 pages

Author’s website | Goodreads

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SYNOPSIS

Facing a crossroads– both career and personal– the youngest of the five Bennett Sisters, Elise, does what she does best: she runs away to think. This time she runs to a farm in Provence that produces heaven-scented lavender for oils. The area is famous for the beautiful purple flower, the symbol of this southern region of France. Her sisters are stumped. Elise never seemed like the farming type, or even gardening, for that matter. But she’s signed up for a farm stay vacation, an idea she got from an unlikely source, the trophy wife of one of her law partners. When she arrives, courtesy her older sister Merle who drives her to the Luberon from the Dordogne, she discovers she is the only guest at the picturesque family farm who is not a college student. The rest are all doing a French language exchange program and are 20 years younger than Elise, leaving her feeling like an outsider and wondering about her life choices. Not only is her judgment in men and careers awful, but she can’t even plan a decent vacation. Meanwhile in the Dordogne, Merle’s niece, Willow, arrives for some R&R before she starts law school. But she brings a few surprises with her, a boyfriend plus Elise’s fiancé. Or is it ex-fiancé? It will take several sisters– and of course Pascal– to unravel the facts as all descend on southern France for July in the heat and lavender. Suspense, romance, intrigue, and humor as the summer heats up for the Bennett Sisters again. Another delicious adventure in international travel and cozy mystery as the Bennett Sisters fight their way to truth, justice, and a perhaps a summer fling, deep in Provence. A summer fling in France never hurt anyone, now did it?

Works fine as a stand-alone

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lise McClendon is the author of thirteen books in the Bennett Sisters mystery series including A Bolt from the Blue, Blame it on Paris, and DEAD FLAT. She wrote two mystery series, the Alix Thorssen and Dorie Lennox mysteries set in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and World War II-era Kansas City (The Bluejay Shaman; One O’clock Jump). She also writes stand-alones as Rory Tate, including PLAN X, a thriller featuring a Bozeman, Montana policewoman. She edited the 2020 anthology, STOP THE WORLD: Snapshots from the Pandemic, bringing together 40 writers around the globe to discuss their experiences and emotions during this year, plus poetry and short fiction. Her short story, Forked Tongue, was included in the Anthony Award-winning anthology, The Obama Inheritance. As Thalia Filbert she wrote with four other well-seasoned crime writers the darkly comic culinary thriller, Beat Slay Love: One Chef’s Hunger for Delicious Revenge. Lise has served Mystery Writers of America in the past as a national board member and Montana representative. She lives in wilds of Montana near Yellowstone National Park.

Visit her website

Subscribe to her mailing list

Follow her on Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

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You can enter the global giveaway here or on any other book blog participating in this tour. Visit/Follow the participating blogs on Facebook/Twitter, as listed in the entry form below, and win more entry points!

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Tweeting about the giveaway everyday of the Tour will give you 5 extra entries each time! [just follow the directions on the entry-form] Global giveaway open to all 5 winners will receive an ecopy of this book

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Lavender Problems

A few weeks ago, I noticed that Trader Joe's had dried lavender for sale. I quickly snatched it up and brought it home, imagining the fragrant scent wafting through the dining room.
The bunch was too small for most of our wide vases, so I decided to use a glass decanter that usually sets atop the China cabinet.
I have several decanters that originally belonged to my grandmother, who lived in a strict teetotaler household. I'm not sure why she was drawn to the heavy glass decanters, but rather than alcohol, she used to fill them with colored water and set them on the windowsill where the sun would sparkle on the jewel-colored liquid.
I had enough lavender for two decanters, so I stuck some lavender stems in each and set one in the dining room and the other in the bathroom in front of the mirror.

As much as I love the look and the fragrance of the lavender in the bathroom, as the little pieces of lavender get brushed or give up their grips on the stems, they tumble to the countertop. And once on the counter, they look like mouse droppings. 

I quickly wipe them up, but every time I see them, they give me a bit of a start. 

Perhaps this is why I haven't kept dried lavender in the house before. 

Hope whatever problems that you are having are as inconsequential as mine.

Happy New Year!

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.

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.