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?

Tuesday Intro -- Letters 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.
I wrote about this book Letters from Paris by Juliet Blackwell for Dreaming of France on Monday, so I thought I'd share the intro today. The book goes back and forth in time from Claire Broussard who grew up in Louisiana and travels to Paris after the death of her grandmother who raised her. She's

trying to track down the artists who make masks like the one she found in her attic as a child, and the mask might be connected to her own history. The book jumps back in time to 1897 to tell the story of Sabine, a young French woman who travels to Paris in hopes of finding work.

Here's the intro from the prologue:

February 27, 1898
He sleeps.
Sabine creeps across the dark studio before dawn, beseeching the silent faces not to betray her. They watch her every move, mute witnesses to her crime.
Slipping through the door, she winces at the scraping sound of metal on metal as she pauses to latch it behind her. Fog envelops her,, the mist cutting through her threadbare blouse and underthings, wet needles of cold air piercing her skin. 

  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 65:

Claire's stomach growled again. And knock her over with a feather: there was a McDonald's. Right there on the Champs-Elysees.
If that wasn't a sign, she didn't know what was. Claire ducked into the fast-food restaurant. 

I don't know about you, but I'm a little put off by an American who eats at McDonalds when in France. We did it when we traveled with the kids, but I would have to be super homesick pass up French restaurants and cafes to eat at McDonalds.

Here are the kids outside a McDonalds as we drove through France. 

Hope everyone is reading something good.

Saturday Snapshot -- Sad Yet Happy

Join West Metro Mommy for this weekly meme of photos people have taken and share on their blogs.

One of the universities where I teach is getting rid of all of its hard copy books.
I know, it's hard to imagine.
It's going to make the spacious room a commons area for students to gather, and instead of books, it is putting emphasis on the online collection.
That meant that today, I got a chance to peruse the library collection and take any books that I wanted. Of course, being a university, the emphasis was on reference and textbooks, but I still found some classics and picked out books that I thought my husband, my son and my daughter might like.

My husband got a collection of Edgar Allan Poe stories plus great American Mysteries.
My daughter is getting ready to fly overseas, so I grabbed a copy of Tender is the Night, a book I read on the beach in Corsica many years ago. I hope she'll read it and leave it where someone else can find it to read. I also found a book called A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare that should be fun while she travels around England.
For my son, I figured he needed a copy of Catch 22 all his own, plus some James Patterson novels and A Farewell to Arms.
I took Boomsday by Christopher Buckley for me and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, which I haven't read, but figured would be fitting because of the Native American protests going on now.
A library without any books is sad. I'm glad I grabbed a few that will be read and passed on to others.

Readers' Workouts -- New Exercise Schedule

Joy at Joy's Book Blog has built up a community of people who love to read and work out. You know that I enjoy both of those things, so I'm joining in.

During the summer months, I stay active, but I have a harder time enforcing a walking/running schedule on myself.
I definitely have enjoyed the morning walks I shared with my friend Sheila most days throughout the summer.
Now that college has begun again, I teach at 8 a.m. three mornings a week. So I decided to make those three days non-exercising mornings. Instead, I spend time writing before work.
That means I need to get a lot accomplished on the other four mornings. I'm trying to run six miles Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. So far, I've managed that on both Sunday and Tuesday. I'm fairly proud of myself, because while trying to run five or six days a week in the summer, I've noticed that my distance really goes down.

Here's a recent picture I took on a run. Some kids toilet papered one
of their friend's houses. It looks like a jungle with white vines.

Here's a selfie I took on my first day of class. 

This morning, I got my 10,000 steps in before 7:30 a.m. Then I walked for an hour and a half with Sheila. Right now, at 12:30, I have more than 23,000 steps for the day!
So for four days a week, while the weather stays warm, I'll get plenty of exercise.
But I do feel guilty about the idea of not exercising those other three days. Yes, it's a slight obsession; my friend Sheila jokes about all of my exercising rules.  My plan is to take a gym bag with me to work. I can stop at the gym and lift weights, do some rowing or bike riding on my way home from work. If I come home before I go to the gym, the odds of working out go way down.

It's only the first week, but I hope to stick to the schedule through the fall semester.
Isn't it funny that when the schedule gets busier, I actually get more accomplished?
I'm teaching seven college courses at two different universities, so I guess that means I need to be more disciplined.
Hope your autumn exercise schedule is off to a good start.

Tuesday Intros -- Ally Hughes Has Sex Sometimes

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 took a photo of the book cover
because the cover on Amazon is
very different, but this one has a shiny
cover on it, which doesn't photograph well.

I picked up this book because I heard the author on the radio. I don't think she was even talking about her fiction, but I'm starting the novel Ally Hughes Has Sex Sometimes by Jules Moulin.

In the end it was Harry's fault.
Harry Goodman  had promised to help Professor Hughes around the house that Friday. He'd also promised the Friday before and the Friday before that, too.
But it was New England and baseball season and 2004. The Sox were moving toward a ninety-eight, sixty-four record that spring and five months later, that October, they'd sweep the Cardinals to win their first Series in eighty-six years. 

I'm curious about what was Harry's fault, but I'm put off by all the numbers in the baseball paragraph. Hope I like it.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Don't cry for me, Argentina!
But awful timing has me waist-deep in papers to grade this week.
I teach four classes at one college and two classes at another, and all six classes turned in papers this week. So my days are spent teaching and grading, along with pigeon-holing workouts in between.
Think fondly of me and any blog posts I might have been writing if I weren't busy grading.
But wish me a quick green grading pen and perfect student papers.

Here's a photo of a friend of mine who's on the Appalachian Trail and took a copy of my book with her.

My novel, The Summer of France, is on sale on Kindle for 99 cents Friday through Sunday. If you haven't read it, I hope you'll give it a try and spread the word to your friends who love reading.

Always on Alert

They tell you when your children hit their teen years -- watch out!
Be aware!
Look for changes in behavior.
It could be a sign.
And that's why, last week, when I came home from work and my just-out-of-his-teen-years son had been home alone, I immediately noticed.
Something that I'd last seen tucked away in the basement was on the dining room table.

I pushed aside the thoughts that I might immediately jump to.
But a few days later, I came home and found more evidence. This on the table.

Since the book was left open, I could no longer ignore the obvious evidence.
Tucker is reading again.
No more gorging himself only on Twitter, SnapChat and Instagram.
He may have started with a comic book that he loved as a child, but he has gone on to full-blown novels and even asked if he could have Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five when I was preparing to donate it.
Something's afoot here, and I'm one top of it.

Reading Childhood

For the past few weeks, I had a machine that scans negatives into my computer. I spent a few days trying to capture my children's photo memories. Some of them turned out well, others had off colors.
As I had a chance to review the kids' childhoods, I couldn't help but notice how often we read books.
No matter who came to the house, they needed to read books with the kids.

Here's a teenage neighborhood boy reading to Grace dressed as a dog. 

Here's Spencer thrilled with a Castle book. 

Spencer reading Sleeping Beauty to himself in his toddler bed. 

My friend Pat from Florida reading to Grace 

Grace and cousin Abby momentarily distracted from their book. 

Grace reading Thomas the Tank Engine to Spencer.

Me reading to Grace and Spencer.

Our neighbor Barb reading to Grace and Spencer. 

I didn't finish scanning photos, so I didn't get to many of Tucker, but I needed to include him, not reading, but getting buried in the sand.

The next time I post about my kids, I'm going to show you why would should have known that Grace would be an actress. 

My Novel For a Bargain Price

Thursday through Saturday, my first novel, The Summer of France, is available for only 99 cents on Kindle.
If you haven't read it yet, I hope you'll buy it.
If you have, why haven't  you written a review for it on Amazon? Well, a lot of you have, so thank you.
Here's a description to tempt you:

Could a crackly phone call from France to Ohio save Fia Randolph’s jobless complications and family troubles? That’s what she hopes when her Uncle Martin asks Fia, her husband, and teenage twins to move to Provence and take over his bed and breakfast. She envisions long picturesque walks carrying crusty baguettes and bonding with the kids as they all learn French. But Fia didn’t bargain on the way Provence would tempt her teens and husband away from the family. Then Uncle Martin’s World War II secret wrenches her family further apart. Can Fia pull her family back together and help clear her uncle’s guilty conscience?

Thanks for your support. Hope you enjoy it.

First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser -- Bitter Almonds

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 what snagged me with this little book Bitter Almonds by Laurence Cossé. Of course, it's set in Paris so that made me pick it up, but I swallowed it in one bite. Here's the intro:

There's a ring at the door. Édith is at work on the dining room table. I won't get it, she thinks, the hell with it. Who could it be? It's almost dark. But she gets up, goes to open.

The opening wouldn't grab me at all, but the simple, straightforward writing (translation) just moves along and I went with it. The story is about a middle class French woman who decides to help her Moroccan house maid to read. As the story unfolds, they learn about each other's lives.
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 31:

She cannot tell the i apart from the other letters. Clearly there is nothing distinctive about a dot above a letter. As for "above," it's as if Fadila hadn't a clue what she meant by it. 

Like I said, I enjoyed this novel.

When to Put a Book Down

Reading can be tricky.
I won't keep reading a book that doesn't interest me. There are too many other good books out there.
So my first 100 pages of J.K. Rowling's novel The Casual Vacancy plodded past. Because the book wasn't interesting, I wasn't compelled to pick it up in my few spare minutes. Because I didn't pick it up at every opportunity, each time I had to try to remember who this character was or who that character was. There are lots of characters and none of them is the protagonist. None of them is the one character you are pulling for or rooting against.
In addition to lots of characters, the book didn't evoke any emotion in me. It was dull.
So why didn't I stop it?
I made the mistake of looking at the Amazon reviews. It has bad and good reviews. The bad reviews, unfortunately, said intellectual things like, "This book sucks." or "What a waste of time." The good reviews, of course, went into detail about how this is a great saga and that just because it is difficult reading does not mean that  the reader should put it down. The good reviewers were claiming that the rest of us were lightweights.
So I determined to keep reading, even if I don't like it. Maybe I'll change my mind by the time I get to the end, or maybe I won't, but I'll be able to give an honest review of it.
What I think so far is that editors are too bowled over by Rowling's fame to tell her to tighten her writing at the beginning of the book.
How about you? How far do  you read before giving up on a book? Or are you one of those who never gives up? You'll read to the end no matter what.

I Want a France Meme

Last week, on Thursday, I tried the "I Love France" meme. Unfortunately, it looks like the blog that used to do that is no longer doing it. Sigh...
I want a weekly France meme, but I don't have any bright ideas. Do you?
What could bloggers write about every week if they love France?
I'd like to include books, movies, photos, stories, food, fashion -- all from France.
I could even make a cool logo for it (or ask a more-talented friend to do it).
I'm waiting for your brilliant suggestions. Meanwhile, here's a photo that Grace took of Mont St. Michel with some sort of special effect. Lovely.

Summer Evening

For my friend who sat through her 8-year-old's soccer tryouts, these days will come.
Sitting on the hammock with a book set in Italy. A warm breeze blows my hair across my face. The tweets of birds are my social media. The lowering sun is my backlight for reading.
Ahhh. La dolce vita

Book Rubs Me the Wrong Way

Do you ever pick up a book you want to read and then something puts you off? That happened to me when I began The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma. The book focuses on the author's pact with her dad to read together every day and how the ritual changed their lives.
I read to my kids all the time when they were little, and my parents read to me, so I knew I would be able to relate to the book.
My mistake was reading the foreword. Who even reads the foreword? I should have skipped it. The foreword was written by the father who read daily with his daughter, now in her early 20s, until she left for college.
The father, Jim Brozina, told his version of how the daily reading plan began and then espoused the many benefits his daughter received from being read to by her father. At the end, he sums up how important reading together is.
Here's the part that bugged me:

If children feel that a parent is living a life that shows compassion and understanding, patience and love, that child will not have to reach a stage of rebellion against that parent. Why rebel against someone who has listened to you and wants to help you fulfill your dreams? (p. xviii)

Okay. There was a time when I was more judgmental about parents and kids. As Grace reached her high school graduation, I was feeling a bit smug about our relationship and how she managed to stay out of trouble. Some grandiose temper tantrums during her preteen years were the extent of the drama she caused our family. I might have even been able to write the words written by Brozina. Obviously, the other parents were doing it all wrong.
However, Grace was my first child, not my last. And since then, I've discovered that even good parents have kids who get in trouble. I was wrong when I judged parents whose kids took a wrong turn. That becomes more obvious when parents raise all their kids the same way and some of them find trouble while others stay on the straight and narrow path.
My boys have chosen to rebel. They aren't in trouble with the law or anything, but they find typical teenage activities to occupy them and keep me awake at night.
Luckily, I can learn from Brozina's words and examine myself to see which of the many characteristics he has that I'm missing. Maybe not enough compassion and understanding? Too little patience and love? Perhaps I never wanted to help them fulfill their dreams.
Unfortunately, (?) my boys, who I read to, are still close enough to me that they inform me of their rebellious activities, which only causes me to lose more sleep.
As someone who spends her days trying to make sure my kids can go to the college of their choice and enjoy the extracurricular activities that will make them well-rounded, along with providing them a house in a good school district and healthy meals, I don't think I'm going to criticize my own parenting. Instead, I'll put down The Reading Promise and move on to another book.

First Paragraph, Teaser Tuesday -- The Other 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.
Just this morning I picked up this book and decided to read it now that my teaching break has begun.
The Other Life by Ellen Meister has a teaser line on the cover "What if you could return to the road not taken?"
Here's the beginning of Chapter 1:

Quinn Braverman had two secrets she kept from her husband. One was the real reason she chose him over Eugene, her neurotic, self-loathing, semi-famous ex-boyfriend, was to prove her mother wrong. She could have a relationship with a normal, stable man.
The other was that Quinn knew another life existed in which she had made the other choice. The two lives ran in parallel lines, like highways on opposite sides of a mountain. There, on the other side, the Quinn who had stayed with Eugene was speeding through her high-drama, emotionally exhausting, childless urban life. Here, the Quinn who had married Lewis lived in the suburbs of Long Island, drove a Volvo, and was pregnant with her second child.

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
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 my teaser from page 172:

Quinn took her husband's hand from her shoulders and wrapped them around her. I promise to never do it again, she thought, and tried to imagine her guilt as vapor that dissipated into the atmosphere.