Novels Set in France

 Since many of you read my blog to keep up-to-date on my novels or my travels in France, I wanted to let you know about a new Facebook group that might interest you.

I have spent time writing and looking out this window in Aix en Provence

The group is called Novels Set in France and it highlights books that -- you guessed it -- take place in France. You might find some new favorite books there.

I have no doubt that you'll be able to add some interesting ideas and discussions to the group. 

Let me know if some of your favorite books haven't been included yet.

And, just in case you've fallen behind on reading my novels, here are some pictures and links: 

The Summer of France: When Fia Jennings loses her job at the local newspaper, she thinks she'll have the chance to bond with her teenage twins. As she realizes she may be too late to create the perfect family, she's saved by a phone call from her great Uncle Martin who runs a bed and breakfast in Provence. Uncle Martin wants Fia to venture to France to run the B&B so he and his wife Lucie can travel. He doesn't tell Fia about the secret he hid in the house when he married Lucie after fighting in World War Ii, and he doesn't mention the people who are tapping his phone and following him, hoping to find the secret.

Falling for Provence: Running a French B&B isn’t all wine and smelly cheese, Fia Jennings discovers as she tries to create a new life for herself and a smooth path for her teenage twins, while not—absolutely not – falling into a new romance. But she didn’t anticipate a handsome stranger showing up on her doorstep and sucking her into an art caper with dangerous overtones. Can she make a new life in France or will she retreat to the States and her broken marriage?

Paris Runaway: When divorced mom Sadie Ford realizes her 17-year-old daughter Scarlett has run away to Paris all she can imagine are terrorist bombings and sex slaves. After learning her daughter chased a French exchange student home, Sadie hops on the next plane in pursuit. She joins forces with the boy’s father, Auguste, and the two attempt to find the missing teens. The chase takes Sadie and Auguste to the seedier side of Marseille, where their own connection is ignited. Since the divorce, Sadie has devoted herself to raising kids and putting her dreams on hold, but when her daughter needs her most, Sadie finds that concrete barrier to life beginning to crack. In her journey, she learns the difference between watching the hours pass and living.

I See London I See France: When her husband of a dozen years walks out in a huff, Caroline Sommers walks out too - to Europe, with her kids after impulsively selling her minivan for travel money. Tired of being the perfect wife, she escapes to rediscover herself, and possibly rekindle the unrequited love of a Frenchman from her college days. While shepherding her kids from London to Scotland then Paris to Provence, she finds herself at a crossroads. Does she choose love, or lust, in the arms of a European man, or should she try again with the father of her children and the man she truly loved, once?

Trail Mix: In the tradition of Wild by Cheryl Strayed, comes a novel of two suburban women who decide to hike the Appalachian Trail, escaping their lives as moms and wives in search of nature, adventure, and the ultimate diet plan.

How does a woman know what she wants after spending 20 years thinking about her husband and children? Sometimes it takes a distraction from everyday life, time to examine the forest before the trees become clear. With no previous camping experience, Andi and Jess begin the 2100-mile odyssey from Georgia to Maine. The friends figure life on the trail can't possibly be worse than dealing with disgruntled husbands, sullen teens home from college, and a general malaise that has crept up in their daily lives. At the very least, the women are bound to return home thin.

French Masquerade: A short story: As Joanna’s only son graduates and her marriage stumbles to an unexpected close, an old friend drags her to Paris to drown her sorrows in wine, museums and men with accents. Can the City of Light ignite a spark in Joanna or only torch songs from her younger days?

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.

My Novels Free on Kindle Through Sunday

I can't really do much to save the world and the people around me.
I'm not a doctor or a nurse or a scientist working on a cure for Coronavirus.
I'm not even a grocery store clerk making sure that the shelves are full and people don't hoard.
But I am an author and I can offer my four novels for free on Kindle.
Just visit my author page on Amazon to download any of my four novels. Hopefully it will help the time to pass more quickly for you as you are hunkered down in your home trying to stay safe.
Three of my novels are about running away to France, and now I've done that.

I took this picture on Thursday morning on my run. The mountains had snow last night and
the sun was shining on them behind the church steeple. 

My most recent novel is Paris Runaway:  On a quest to find her teenage daughter, can a mother find herself? Romance, travel, adventure.

Photo credit Virginia Jones from "Paris Through My Lens" blog

 The Summer of France is also available free on Kindle. Escape to Provence. But don't expect only sunflowers and blue skies. Family secrets and suave Frenchmen may complicate life.

My final available novel set in France is I See London I See France. Here's a review so you can see it through someone else's eyes: “This novel is a fun escape to France, including a whirl-wind ride through neighboring countries. I loved the descriptions of the various settings and interesting tidbits about living in France. If you like stories set in places you'd love to visit, and enjoy a bit of intrigue and history as well, you'll enjoy this book!”– Jackie Bouchard, author of What the Dog Ate

Photo credit for this one goes to my youngest son. 

But I did find some adventure while still in the United States as I wrote Trail Mix. Two suburban women in their mid-40s  decide to hike the Appalachian Trail as the ultimate diet plan but sometimes it takes an escape from everyday life, time to examine the forest, before the trees and life become clear.

I hope you'll download one of my novels and let me know if all of the characters running away from their responsibilities help you escape some of your worries. 

Friday Exploits

Thanks to all my new readers who are coming along to watch the fun-- or carnage -- of my adventure of moving to France. If you haven't read my novels, I hope you'll consider downloading on Kindle. Through Sunday, my first novel, The Summer of France, is only 99 cents. I'd appreciate if you'd give it a try and leave a review. Click on the book and it will take you to Amazon.

This is only for the U.S. edition. I'll have to figure out how to include the UK edition and let you know when it is reduced. 

On to our Friday exploits:
Friday morning the rains had stopped and the sun began to shine in some Biblical Genesis way.


After being stranded on Thursday, we were determined to get out of our isolated island on Friday. First, we took the dogs for a walk, exploring the roads that would lead us to civilization.
The current was fast across the road in one direction, but not too deep. In the other direction, I handed Earl the dog leash so he could hold both dogs while I walked through the deepest section. It didn't top my boots, which come to my knee, so we knew that even though the water looked deep, we could ford that stream.


We decided to go to Bordeaux, which is about an hour and half away. We were missing cafe life and pictured sitting in a square with the sun beaming on our faces. After we showered and readied the dogs for their time in the house alone, I pulled up my weather app.
It predicted heavy rain in Bourdeaux! How was that possible when the sun had forced us to don sunglasses?

Can you see the mistake I made when I searched for the weather in Bordeaux? I misspelled it and got a Bourdeaux somewhere else in France -- 400 miles away. But we didn't catch the mistake before we ditched our trip to Bordeaux. We needed to stay in the sunshine.
We decided to drive to Jarnac instead because it had a market going on and it's less than half an hour drive. Plus it has a Cognac house there -- Courvoisier. Our host served us some cognac the night we arrived. I think it must be an acquired taste. I had only a sip and felt the burning through my throat. Although, perhaps I should try it as a cold cure when I'm not drinking pastis.
I plowed ahead through the shin-deep water with our Citroen C3 and safely arrived on drier ground. Earl and I shared a fist bump at making our escape from the flooded island.
Driving is when I get my most French practice because the GPS is in French. À la fin de la route, tournez à gauche, she'll say (at the end of the road, turn left), allez toute droite (go straight ahead) or dirigez à  droite (veer to the right). Living in the country definitely curtails my French practice. Sometimes we share "bonjours" with the men fishing along the long or other residents walking along the country road. For the most part though, we're isolated with our English speaking.
We made it to Jarnac and speedily found a parking spot at city hall. The sign warned only 90 minutes of parking, but the hours were from 9-12 and from 2:30-6. Luckily, we parked at 11, so we had until 3 to move the car. Thank goodness parking wasn't enforced during the requisite French lunch hour. 

Inside city hall, we asked for the location of the market, le marché, which wasn't apparent. In the summer, the markets fill up the "centre ville" but in the winter, this market is inside. The man directed us down the hill and to the left (more French directions). We walked into "les halles" where we were immediately assaulted with the pungent odor of fish. Once our eyes stopped watering, we saw fruits, vegetables, a coffee bar, meats, cheeses, bread and pastries. 

We loaded up on baguettes, some croissants for breakfast the next day, two types of cheese and some luscious red tomatoes. Once we returned the bag to the car, we still had some time to kill. We decided to walk around Jarnac and read the lunch menus in preparation for our next big event -- lunch.

The Courvoisier Chateau, which means castle, but apparently when you make alcohol the house is called a chateau, too, stands along the river, so parts of the riverwalk were underwater here. They give tours from May through September, but during the winter months, you have to reserve ahead of time. We might look into a tour of a cognac maker in the next few weeks just to see the process.

Through the window, we could see the barrels of cognac. I wonder if these are actually filled since the light and heat from the sun might affect how the alcohol ages. I guess I'd have to take a tour to find out.
Jarnac didn't have a lot of open restaurants to choose from, but we ended up at l'Alambic. We usually try to choose a restaurant that  has a menu of the day. Frequently, we end up paying between 10 Euro and 13 Euro for a three course meal if we go with the menu of the day. This restaurant had several things on its "menu" that I didn't recognize, so we ordered individual entrees. A goat cheese and honey salad for both of us.

You can see the goat cheese on toast, along with slices of oranges and pears. 
After our lunch, we stopped at the pharmacy for more Fervex. I'm feeling better, but my cold may have mutated into a sinus infection. I've promised myself if I'm not feeling really well on Monday then I'll find a doctor. But this Fervex helps relieve the symptoms beautifully. 
When we got home, we took the dogs for a long walk, Earl still carrying short Jeff through the deep parts. We waded along the road and noticed some swans paddling toward us. They were amazing. 
If the fields hadn't flooded, we wouldn't have captured this magical swam moment. 

I took several shots of the swans and I wondered as I watched them if they might not have been mistaken for the Loch Ness monster as they dipped their heads in the water in search of food. They are huge.
Another pair of swans flew in and landed as I tried to capture their flight. 

As we walked on wading through the rushing water, we came to a church in Angeac-Charente. The sun was setting just behind it and the clouds looked ominous. 

Our hosts had told us about this church, but when we read the sign on the door, it looks like they aren't having mass here during the winter. The local mass is at 6:30 on Saturday in another nearby village. 
Walking home, having actually reached my 14,500-step goal for the day, I felt thankful for the flood which brought me the swans and the magical sky, and grateful for a day of good meals and wet dogs. 
A day in France living my dream, cold or no cold. 

Tuesday Intros -- The Light of 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'm not doing nearly enough reading these days, but teaching seven college courses keeps me pretty
busy. I'm truly enjoying Eleanor Brown's The Light of Paris. She has some lovely passages as she tells the story of Madeleine in 1999, a woman in a sterile marriage living in a Chicago high rise with her powerful husband, and that of her grandmother, Margie in 1924, who travels to Paris as a chaperone to her younger cousin and decides to stay. I love traveling back in time and to Paris during that time after World War I as artists, writers and philosophers tried to make sense of the world.
Here's the intro, actually, the 2nd paragraph, which I think is more representative of the novel:

I had the best of intentions, always: to make my mother happy, to keep the peace, to smooth my rough edges and ease my own way. But in the end, the life I had crafted was like the porcelain figurines that resided in my mother's china cabinets: smooth, ornate, but delicate and hollow. For display only. Do not touch. 

Hope you're reading something fabulous and have more reading time than I do.

FranceBookTours -- In Another Life

CLICK ON THE BANNER TO READ REVIEWS, EXCERPT, INTERVIEW, GUEST-POST

I received a copy of In Another Life by Julie Christine Johnson in exchange for a fair review. And you can enter to win a paperback copy of the novel at the bottom of this post. Make sure you enter!

I was excited to start this novel set in Languedoc, France, which is the area my husband and I plan to move next year, and now I have an avalanche of images and history about the region that I can draw on.
This novel focuses on Lia who returns to France a year after her husband died in a bicycle accident to see if she can begin living again. That's a story I would have enjoyed -- to simply see her finding solace in the countryside and culture of France, but I hadn't counted on the magical elements in the story. Lia, a historian, finds that she is wrapped in a reincarnation story that stretches back 800 years to the tumultuous past of the region when the Cathars were killed by emissaries of the Catholic church. Lia has to figure out who the good guys and bad guys are over the 800-year chasm.
This book definitely kept me guessing as to what would happen next. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, a new twist would send me in another direction. The story is full of romance across the centuries and historical mysteries solved, at least in the novel. Now I'll have to investigate it to see how much of this historical fiction was history

(Historical Fiction/Contemporary Women’s Fiction/ Fantasy/Romance) Release date: February 2, 2016 at Sourcebooks 368 pages ISBN: 978–2954168197 Website | Goodreads

SYNOPSIS

Historian Lia Carrer has finally returned to southern France, determined to rebuild her life after the death of her husband. But instead of finding solace in the region’s quiet hills and medieval ruins, she falls in love with Raoul, a man whose very existence challenges everything she knows about life–and about her husband’s death. As Raoul reveals the story of his past to Lia, she becomes entangled in the echoes of an ancient murder, resulting in a haunting and suspenseful journey that reminds Lia that the dead may not be as far from us as we think. Steeped in the rich history and romantic landscape of the Languedoc region, In Another Life is a story of love that conquers time and the lost loves that haunt us all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo by Al Bergstein

Julie Christine Johnson is the author of the novels In Another Life (February 2016, Sourcebooks Landmark) and The Crows of Beara (September 2017, Ashland Creek Press). Her short stories and essays have appeared in several journals, including Emerge Literary Journal, Mud Season Review; Cirque: A Literary Journal of the North Pacific Rim; Cobalt, the anthologies Stories for Sendai; Up, Do: Flash Fiction by Women Writers; and Three Minus One: Stories of Love and Loss and featured on the flash fiction podcast, No Extra Words. She holds undergraduate degrees in French and Psychology and a Master’s in International Affairs. A runner, hiker, and wine geek, Julie makes her home on the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington state with her husband. In Another Life is her first novel.

***

Visit Julie’s website and blog Follow Julie Christine Johnson on Twitter | on Facebook

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Buy the book | on Amazon | on Barnes & Noble | on Indiebound

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Global giveaway open to US residents only: 5 participants will each win a print copy of this book. Be sure to follow each participant on Twitter/Facebook, for more chances to win

Enter here

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Writing and Marseille

My week is busy with grading papers and writing.
I'm never really sure if anyone checks in on the blog and feels disappointed that I haven't written.
But, I have completed my first edit of Paris Runaway, my latest novel.
It's got a mother searching for her teenage daughter who ran away from their home in Florida to Paris chasing after the French exchange student.
The mother follows and learns about the importance of embracing life.
In addition to the streets of Paris, the novel will take you to Marseille, and into a Frenchman's bed.
Oh la la!
Thanks for sticking with me.
Here are a couple of pictures of Marseille.  The first is from the train station. In the background, you can see a hill and a spectacular cathedral sits on the hill overlooking the harbor. The church is called Notre Dame de la Garde.

And here's a shot of the ferris wheel along the harbor. 

Ferris wheels are becoming as ubiquitous as carousels in French towns these days. 

 

Dreaming of France -- L'Amour Actually

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 seem to be awash in books set in France. I just finished reading Honeymoon in Paris (twice). Once by Jojo Moyes and once by Juliette Sobanet. And I read That's Paris, an anthology of short stories set in Paris. Now comes L'Amour Actually: Falling in Love in the Heart of France by Melanie Jones. It is one of those British chick-lit books with an accident-prone main character who finds herself in a pickle after leaving London to live in Southwestern France.

She's flighty enough to make Bridget Jones seem sensible, but I'm still enjoying the experience.
Reading books set in France is almost as much fun as visiting.
Here's a snippet that shows part of the culture shock of moving to rural France:

"Well boys," I announced, standing up to leave, "I'd better be getting off. I need to do a bit of shopping then get back for the arrival of the furniture."
"No one will come during lunchtime, this is France," said Julien. "Your delivery men will be in a cafe somewhere having a big lunch and a carafe of wine. And the shop doesn't open until three o'clock either."
"Three o'clock! What am I supposed to do until then? What happens if people can only shop in their lunch break?"

 As I was looking at the Amazon link for this book, I had to chuckle at a bad review that says, "Too much elicit sex in it." Ha! Maybe the reviewer meant explicit, but that's her spelling issue. She made me laugh and didn't put me off downloading the book. I haven't come across any sex yet, elicit or otherwise. Here's the Amazon link.
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France today and for leaving a comment. Also remember to check out each other's posts so you can share everyone's musings about France.

Restful Sleep

First, shameless self promotion: my novel The Summer of France is only 99 cents on Kindle today, both in the U.S. and the U.K.
Here's a review that was posted yesterday on Amazon by someone who calls herself  "crazy for reading"

Loved this story! I stayed up till after midnight each night reading it after my family went to bed. So many twists and turns I didn't want to quit.

If you haven't read it, hope you'll give it a try.

Today, my family will gather again, five adults in our small house, for another week before my sons head off to college next week. (Grace is in and out since she has an apartment about 20 minutes away.)
But on the first night that I spent home alone since...forever maybe, I went to bed and did not wake  up for seven hours, until the cat jumped on me at 6 a.m.
Some people think that sleep is only disrupted while kids are babies, but I can tell you that teenagers disrupt sleep even more.

Here's Tucker in his portable hammock. He looks kind of bored.

In my house, someone is pretty much always awake and rambling around the house. They come in at different hours. They're searching for food at 3 in the morning. The television in the living room may be too loud. The floors squeak, the toilet flushes.
I cannot remember the last time that I went to sleep and was oblivious to everything until the next morning.
It was beautiful.
Of course, part of that restful sleep might have to do with the fact that I knew the boys were with their father camping, rather than on a college campus, where they might or might not find trouble. So I may not sleep so peacefully once they've moved to college.
I'd better enjoy them while I can!

Escapes to France

This morning, on my drive in to work, I visited Notre Dame on Île de la Cité.

Not in person, of course, but I listened to Rick Steves' App and historic tour of Paris which starts at Notre Dame. This walking tour is meant to be taken while in Paris, but I didn't mind imagining the Rose window and the statue of St. Dennis with his head held in his hands. I'll listen to more on my way home from work.
I have the Rick Steves app on my iPhone, so I can go on it and choose stories about France (Paris) or France (Beyond Paris). you can also listen to the radio show online. Here's a link to Travel with Rick Steves.
I've listened to fun stories about "How to Eat Like a Parisian" that gave great tips on when the markets are open and told visitors how to order from la carte rather than asking for a menu.
One of the most awkward stories on the Rick Steves app is his interview with David Sedaris. Now, I love David Sedaris and his oddball experiences in France and in the United States. Rick Steves is maybe a bit too mainstream for Sedaris. But the David Sedaris interview.
interview was definitely fun. Here's a link to the
Steves even had a story called "Marrying into France" with tips on why and how to marry a Frenchman (or woman if you happen to be male). He talks about taking canal boat tours and eating cheese and Americans running gites. If you love France (surprise! I do) then you'll enjoy some of these stories.

Also, in hopes of giving you a trip to France, my novel I See London I See France is on sale for 99 cents on Kindle now through Sunday. I hope you'll give it a try.

When her husband of a dozen years walks out in a huff, Caroline Sommers walks out too - to Europe, with her kids after impulsively selling her minivan for travel money. Tired of being the perfect wife, she escapes to rediscover herself, and possibly rekindle the unrequited love of a Frenchman from her college days. While shepherding her kids from London to Scotland then Paris to Provence, she finds herself at a crossroads. Does she choose love, or lust, in the arms of a European man, or should she try again with the father of her children and the man she truly loved, once?

In addition to Caroline's travels with her children, much of the book focuses on Caroline's memories of working as an au pair in Aix en Provence and Corsica. And, yes, much of that was based on my own crush on a French doctor in my early 20s. He taught me to sail on the Mediterranean, and we sailed to hard-to-reach shore which turned out to be a nude beach.
Hope you'll consider buying, and reading, and reviewing, but no pressure. Here's the link to my novel on Amazon for the U.S.
And another link for my UK readers.
I'm linking to Paris in July, because everything I do this month is about France.