FranceBookTours -- The Chocolate Kiss Review, Interview and Giveaway

When I found out that Laura Florand's book The Chocolate Kiss was going to be on France Book Tours, I immediately asked to be included. I've read her other Chocolate books set in Paris and enjoyed them. The books are a little chick lit, a little romance, and a lot of Paris and yummy French chocolate and pastries. This one did not disappoint. I almost wished I was reading it in winter because the descriptions of the hot chocolate were so scrumptious, but summer or winter, this novel will whet your sensual appetites. It was a little racier than I remember the other one's being, but that can be enjoyable too. You don't need to read the other books in the Chocolate series to read this one. They're all independent but some of the characters reappear.
Here's the synopsis from the author:

The Heart of ParisWelcome to La Maison des Sorcieres. Where the window display is an enchanted forest of sweets, a collection of conical hats delights the eye and the habitues nibble chocolate witches from fanciful mismatched china. While in their tiny blue kitchen, Magalie Chaudron and her two aunts stir wishes into bubbling pots of heavenly chocolat chaud.
But no amount of wishing will rid them of interloper Philippe Lyonnais, who has the gall to open one of his world famous pastry shops right down the street. Philippe’s creations seem to hold a magic of their own, drawing crowds of beautiful women to their little isle amidst the Seine, and tempting even Magalie to venture out of her ivory tower and take a chance, a taste…a kiss.
Parisian princesses, chocolate witches, patissier princes and sweet wishes—an enchanting tale of amour et chocolat. 

The magical aspect of the chocolate making kind of reminded me of Chocolat by Joanne Harris. This was a quick read and a delightful escape to Paris and romance.
I was fortunate to get to interview author Laura Florand. Make sure to enter the paperback copy of the book giveaway in the link at the bottom of this post for U.S. readers only.

Interview with Author Laura Florand: 

Laura,

Thanks for taking the time to answer my interview questions.

Q.    Your books feature fabulous scenes in Paris. When did you fall in love with Paris? Do you live there or travel there often? I always say that France (most notably Paris) is a culture that appropriated me. Although I majored in French in college, I had considerable resistance to France itself. My Fulbright year was to Tahiti, my graduate studies were going to be in Francophone culture. Then I spent my first year in Paris as a graduate assistant, and France just sucked me in. I fell in love with my husband there, and he helped me fall in love with Paris, too, and pretty soon I was meeting all his enormous and fascinating family, giving up my studies to stay there with him, we were getting married, and eighty percent of my life was, and still to this day is, lived in French. (I’m also a professor of French at Duke now.) I had fallen down the rabbit hole into this marvelous, powerful city and culture that had just taken my life over. So I often say that writing about it—first a memoir, and now these novels—is my way of possessing my own experience, of engaging with everything that is amazing or fascinating or even frustrating and challenging about my own love affair with Paris and France.

Q. Your books also have mouth-watering descriptions of chocolate and pastries in France. What kind of research do you do to make these accurate? I am probably the most fortunate researcher in the entire world. To research these scenes, I’ve been blessed by the greatest gods of chocolate and pastry in the field, who have welcomed me into their laboratoires and kitchens so that I can observe: Jacques Genin and Michel Chaudun, as chocolatiers, and Laurent Jeannin as the head pastry chef at the Michelin three-star Épicure in the Bristol. I’ve also been privileged to have two excellent local-to-Duke chocolatiers, Paris-trained Bonnie Lau of Miel Bon Bons in Durham, and one of the earliest microbatch bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the US, Hallott Parsons at L’Escazu in Raleigh, who have allowed me to badger them with questions and curiosity when I’m not in Paris.

      It has been absolutely amazing and, of course, incredibly delicious, to be able to research with these incredible, passionate, perfectionist, generous, impossibly hard-working men and women. I am myself only an amateur cook, so I know I may still make some mistakes, despite all the research. But if I can at least capture the energy and sheer glory of what they do and what kind of people they are, that will be something.

Q     If you could only write about chocolate or Paris, not both, which would you choose? I don’t think I could do that! Choose, I mean. Paris but also the sensuality of things (chocolate, definitely!) are truly right at the core of so much of my creativity. That said, I am writing about neither chocolate nor Paris in my next series, but rather Provence and perfume and roses, so maybe that’s some kind of answer. Whatever is sensual and vivid and rich with culture appeals to me as subject and setting.

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Q.    This book has some sexy love scenes. I won’t ask about research, but how do you decide how much to include? Do you ever worry about your relatives reading the sex scenes?

You know, I just go with the story. These are fundamentally books about the full sensuality of life, of Paris, of food, of everything, and to pull back on that sensuality just when we’re reaching its very heart seemed wrong. I did have some reserve at first—having started with a memoir, to find myself shifting into such deeply romantic and sexy stories was a little disorienting for me. When I was first writing The Chocolate Thief, the first in the series, I kept thinking I should close the door or do something that would make this story more “literary”. But I finally realized that to make a story less powerful to fit some pre-conceived notion of what I could or couldn’t write was inane and, honestly, intellectually weak. So I just let it go. (Kind of like a certain song my daughter has been singing at the top of her lungs in the back of the car through all our travels through Provence the past few weeks.) And I think that once I released the full story and quit trying to chain it in any way was when I really hit my stride with writing, when I could embrace everything that fascinates me most about life—falling in love with a person, a place, an experience, living and loving with energy and passion through all kinds of challenges but always to the fullest.

Q.    What inspired your series of books about women falling love in Paris? You know, while I couldn’t myself put my thumb directly on the inspiration, I think if we look at my own life (falling in love in Paris), it’s probably pretty obvious to an outside observer. J  Internally, I’m not that conscious of my sources of inspiration, I just wake up with scenes in my head, but I can say that, through my own experience, I definitely believe in the power of love and also in the challenge and depth to falling in love across cultures.

Q.    How much of yourself do you include in your characters?

I wouldn’t be able to calculcate it. These characters aren’t me, not at all. But at the same time, they are entirely me. Writing is such an act of empathy, but empathy itself depends on us being able to imagine ourselves in someone else’s shoes. (What would it be like to be…world-famous, for example, constantly in the public eye and judged? How would a shy person handle that? How would a stubborn, arrogant person handle that? What would it be like to grow up between two cultures? Etc.) So I may not be as famous as a certain character, but from somewhere in me I must be able to pull out the experience of being exposed or judged, or feeling shy or awkward, or whatever, and build from there.

Q.    Please share your writing story. How did you begin and what helped you succeed?

When I was in the third grade, we had a short story to write in class. I and my best friend, rivals for teacher’s pet, kept calling each other all evening. “I’ve got four pages!” I would brag. And she would say, “I’ve got five.”

The next day, I was so smug—nine whole pages! I would definitely win.

And she had twelve.

You might say, I’ve been determined to write more ever since.

But as to what helped me succeed—just sheer, stubborn persistence. I would read those writing magazines back then, all of which would say things like “always have ten submissions out” and “submit everything you write at least ten times”, and I would keep a little notebook, full of all my submissions, that I started making to magazines like The New Yorker when I was twelve. Filled with rejection letters, obviously. My father once told me, when I was an adult, that it used to break his heart to go get the mail every day. But I kept at it.

Q.    Do you have a new project you’re working on that we can look forward to?

Yes, the Vie en Roses series! I’m having a wonderful time with this one. It’s set in the region around Grasse in the south of France, in the heart of an old perfume family with their valley full of roses and jasmine. The first full-length book about the Rosier family is ONCE UPON A ROSE, out in August, but people can get a taste of that world in THE CHOCOLATE ROSE, which is connected to both series—a top pastry chef, but he’s long since left Paris to return to his roots in Provence and set up his three-star restaurant there. I loved writing that book and evoking this world of sun and old stone and all these scents. I hope you will enjoy it, too!

And thank you so much for having me on! I so appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and your readers about these books. (And if anyone would like more glimpses into the research, check out my website at www.lauraflorand.com. I also post lots of photos from the research on Pinterest!)

Enter the Giveaway if you are a reader in the U.S.

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First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser -- The Chocolate Touch

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.
Continuing my obsession with France, and looking for a bit of an escape, I'm starting The Chocolate Touch

by Laura Florand.
Here's the intro:

"She's back."
Dom straightened from the enormous block of chocolate he was creating, gave his maîtresse de salle, Guillemette, a disgruntled look for having realized he would want to know that, and slipped around to the spot in the glass walls where he could get the best view of the salle below. He curled his fingers into his palms so he wouldn't press his chocolaty hands to the glass and leave a stain like a kid outside a candy shop.

 I'm not too sure about the plot for this, except it's about a woman who eats chocolate and a man who makes chocolate and it's set in Paris. What else could I ask for?
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 teaser.
Here's my teaser from page 38:

Dominique always liked that first moment when he stepped into the street, carrying the scent of cacao with him so strongly that people turned to look at him, trying to catch his flavor.

Yum, why didn't I marry a man who makes chocolate?

First Paragraph, Teaser Tuesday -- Confessions of a Paris Party 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.
This week I started a book for France Book Tours called Confessions of a Paris Party Girl by Vicki

Lesage. It's a story about Lesage's trip to France as a young 20-something and so far, it looks like partying was an important part of the trip. Here's the intro from Chapter 1:

I would like to say that when I first stepped off the plane and embarked on my new life in France, something memorable happened. Or something funny or amazing or romantic or at least worth writing about. Truth is, I don't remember. I take that to be a good thing. Considering all the mishaps I've had since moving here, "uneventful" nearly equals "good" in my book.
Looking back all these years later, I see myself as a hopeful, naive girl full of energy stepping off that plane. Tired of running into my ex-boyfriend seemingly everywhere around my midwestern American hometown, and having been unceremoniously freed from my IT job, this fearless 25-year-old was ready for a change. 

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 teaser.
Here's a teaser from 19% on my Kindle as she explains a popular fondue restaurant in Paris:

I lied when I said I didn't know what I liked most about the place. Their gimmick is that you drink wine out of baby bottles and this is what stole my heart. It's a guaranteed hit with out-of-town guests, who wear out their camera batteries in various poses with the baby bottles. 

First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser -- My Wish List

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'll be reviewing this book for FranceBookTours on March 19. I've already finished My Wish List by Gregoire Delacourt, but wanted to share the intro with you.

We're always telling ourselves lies.
For instance, I know I'm not pretty. I don't have blue eyes, the kind in which men gaze at their own reflection, eyes in which they want to drown so that I'll dive in to rescue them. I don't have the figure of a model,  I'm more the cuddly sort -- well...plump. The sort who takes up a seat and a half. A man of medium height won't be able to get his arms all the way around me. I don't move with the grace of a woman to whom men whisper sweet nothings, punctuated by sights...no, not me. I get brief forthright comments. The bare bones of desire, nothing to embellish them, no comfortable padding. 

Delacourt, of course, wrote this little novel in French and it was translated into English by Anthea Bell. I love the cover too. The tag line at the bottom asks: "If you won the lottery would you trade your life for the life of your dreams?" Jocelyne runs a shop full of sewing notions. She has a husband and two grown children until one day she plays the lottery.

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 teaser.
Here's a teaser from 16%:

I haven't gone dancing since that thirteenth birthday of mine, when I danced to "Indian Summer" with my budding breasts.

 Hope your reading something you love.

Wolf Wood Review

Welcome to another France Book Tour review. This one is Wolf Wood Part One by Mike Dixon. The book is set in Medieval England while at war with France, so part of the story takes place in France.
Here's the synopsis from the author:

(Some violence, family and political intrigue, quite a lot of romance, some sex but never explicit.)

In 1436 a dispute arose between the people of Sherborne and their abbot over the ownership of a baptismal font.  Before it was settled, the abbey was burnt down and a bishop murdered.  Some saw the hand of evil at work and blamed a newcomer to the town, accusing her of being a witch.  Others saw her as a saint.  Wolf Wood is set in the turbulent years of the late middle ages.  The old feudal aristocracy is losing control, a new middle class is flexing its muscles, the authority of the church is being questioned, law and order have broken down and England is facing defeat in France.  Wolf Wood is a work of fiction based on actual events.

I enjoyed the writing in this story and it pulled me back to keep reading. Some of the characters were likable and others were deplorable, as they should be. The history in the book seemed very well-researched with lots of details that put the reader back in the middle ages. Of course, it doesn't matter how authentic the details are if the story isn't interesting. And the stories of the people's lives was interesting, although the main story of the baptismal font seemed a little vague to me.

The most likable character iss Alice. She comes to Sherbourne as the matron of the almshouse and the nearby Bishop immediately becomes suspicious of her because she uses herbs and plants to help heal people, silly things like recommending prunes for constipation, that obviously brand her a witch. 

Another likable character is Sir Harald, the oldest brother in a noble family, but he prefers books and learning rather than war, like his father and younger brother. We meet Harald as he is fighting a paternity dispute. His widow's family claim that Harald's son was actually fathered by Harald's brother, Guy. The widow's family hopes to get their property back if the son is a bastard.
An interesting thing about this book was that if focused quite a bit on different classes, rather than only on the noble class. 
A drawback of this book is the number of characters, especially while reading on my Kindle. It made it difficult to keep everyone straight. I can't tell you the number of Williams and Richards, and I wondered if the author couldn't have changed the names just to help out the reader.
I also hesitate to read books with numbers after the title, like part one or part two. I hate to make the commitment "to be continued" endings. This one did have a solid ending, so I wasn't left unhappy. 
Taken overall, the book was an interesting slice of life in the middle ages. I can assure you, after reading this, that I would not have wanted to live during those times, but I enjoyed exploring the people and living conditions of the time.

PURCHASING INFORMATION

On the author's website: http://mikejkdixon.com

Author's bio:

"I was born in Sherborne (Dorset) and attended school there and (as an exchange student) in the Medoc region of France.  I studied physics at Oxford and received a PhD degree in astrophysics from the University of Cambridge.  Following teaching and research appointments in South Africa, Scotland and Australia, I joined the Australian Government Service and worked, for a while, as a ministerial assistant.  I entered the tourist industry through public relations and scuba diving and established one of Australia's first backpacker resorts.  I have a keen interest in medieval history and I am a frequent visitor to Britain and France.

"As a boy, growing up in Sherborne, I heard about the famous fire of Sherborne Abbey and was told that a priest shot a flaming arrow into the tower and set the building on fire.  The marks of the fire are visible today, over five hundred years later.  And there is a lot more to tell us what happened.

"There was an inquiry into the dispute that led to the fire and the surviving documents tell of a bitter feud between the abbot and the townspeople.  It's highly dramatic stuff and it inspired me to write my Wolf Wood novels.

"My books are fiction.  Some of the characters are based on real people; others are entirely imaginary.  I have done my best to be faithful to the main course of historical events and fill in the gaps with the sort of things that could have happened to my characters."

First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser -- The Gods of Heavenly Punishment

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've started The Gods of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein. The publisher sent me the book free in return for a fair review, which I'll publish on Sept. 11.
Here's the intro:

Photo from Amazon

Hamburg, New York
May 1935

The climb felt almost arduous, the engine juddering and restarting four times during the creaking ascent up. But when they reached the top it was worth it, as it had always been worth it: they were so far above the ground that the poor, patched and battered world seemed as small and harmless as a toy train set.

So far, I think the writing is really beautiful.

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 h 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 a teaser from page 43:

You should feel lucky, her mother had whispered during their initial omiae meeting, a year after Andrew's departure. By that point they'd met with a half-dozen candidates, all of whom (the matchmaker regretfully informed them afterwards) politely  declined a second meeting. But Kenji -- an Osaka builder with working-class origins and a staunch determination to grow beyond them -- had clearly been enamored from the start; watching her sip her tea and light her cigarette and use her fork and knife, all with the same sort of fascination a child watches a paper lantern show. For most of the meeting he'd seemed too shy to address her. But as they paid the bill he finally mustered the courage: hadn't she found living amid all those Westerners dirty, and a little smelly? Or had she just gotten used to it after a few years?

What do you think?

First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser -- Wolf Wood

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 started Wolf Wood by Mike Dixon, a new book for France Book Tours. I'll be reviewing it at the end of August. The book is about a dispute between the abbot and the townspeople of Sherbourne over a baptismal font. Apparently, the custom was that people had to pay for baptism. From the cover and the title, I didn't think I'd like this book, but the writing is good and the medieval story is pulling me in. Here's the intro:

Easter Sunday 1446
Alice walked up the cobbled path towards the abbey. The old building was undergoing renovation and the scaffolding had recently been removed from the south side of the tower. The work was being undertaken at the huge expense to the parish and was a major cause of friction between the abbot and the local people. On that chilly April morning, the new stonework shone brightly in the crisp light of a cloudless day. 

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 h 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 a teaser from 16% on my Kindle: 

Robin sank down on his haunches. It was a trick he'd learnt from Guy. Let them think you were a useless whimpering kid. It wouldn't enter their stupid heads that you were out to maim them.  

I'll let you know what I think of this one on Aug. 29.

First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser -- The Good Woman

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.

After filling out forms for Parent Plus loans for college yesterday, I dived right into some escapist readingThe Good Woman by Jane Porter is playing the role well.

.
Here's the intro:

He was good.
Meg Roberts stood in the open doors of the Dark Horse Winery's tasting room and watched her boss, Chad Hallahan, co-owner of the Napa winery and VP of sales and marketing, work his magic on the women clustered around him. There were quite a few clustered around, too. But when weren't there?

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 h 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. 
This teaser sounds so familiar for anyone who is a mother. Here's my teaser from page 43:

Even on her rare girls' night out with friends in Santa Rosa, she found herself glancing at her watch and making mental lists of all the things she should be doing instead of sitting with friends chatting over a glass of wine. Laundry. Grocery shopping. Returning calls. Reconciling the checking account. But nowhere on her to-do list was anything to make her laugh or relax or just have fun.

Back to reading and relaxing for a little while longer.

Writing Pain and Book Tours

This morning, I started outside for a run. I felt a few raindrops but figured the sky looked fairly clear. I tucked my iPhone inside my shorts and began. Within a block, the raindrops came heavier. Suddenly they were those plump drops striking against my skin with intensity filling the air around me.
I ran back home and used a towel to wipe my bare arms and legs then changed into shorts and a tank top for some indoor yoga.
The run this morning seems like a metaphor for my online book tour.
Okay, maybe that's a stretch.

France Book Tours is organized by the wonderful Emma at Words and Peace blog. She's a French woman transplanted to the U.S. and she loves books. She wrote an excellent review of my novel last fall.
Emma organized several stops for my novel -- two interviews and four book reviews.
One of the book reviews was positive, two were mediocre on the book, and one apparently felt it shouldn't be in print.
So that leaves me feeling fairly discouraged.
I know that with all books some people will enjoy them and others won't. I know that logically, but my heart still smarts from the rejection.
A student of mine who worked in the publishing/book reviewing world, said self-published writers are the worst about arguing with book reviews, so I try not to.

But... on Suko's notebook when she says "...other aspects were too hackneyed.  (For example, the idea that having extramarital affairs in France is the norm; maybe it is, but it just seemed a bit too clichéd.)"

I had to resist the urge to point out the cliche is French men having affairs. In my book, a French woman seduces the American husband, and it's not for the sake of sex. To me, that's a twist on an old idea rather than a stereotype. But I resisted. Instead, I said nothing.

Emma reminded me in an email that my book rating at Goodreads is 4.04 out of 5, so that's good.
My rating at Amazon.com is 4.2 out of 5.
I guess I need to put aside those needles prickling my confidence and keep writing.
Lots of opportunities to win ecopies or paperback copies of my novel if you haven't done so yet. Even the negative reviews are giving away copies. (Isn't that weird? If someone didn't like the book, who would sign up to win a copy of it?)
So click on the FranceBookTours pic above to see a list of stops on my book tour and you can enter at each one.
And thanks to all of you who have encouraged me. A breath of hope on a small flame, maybe it will grow into something more.

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?

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.

First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser -- Me Before You

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 Me Before You by JoJo Moyes. I got this book because there's a lot of buzz about it. People seem to love it. Hope I do too.
Here's the intro:

 When he emerges from the bathroom, she is awake, propped up against the pillows and flicking through the travel brochures that were beside his bed. She is wearing one of his T-shirts, and her long hair is tousled in a way that prompts reflexive thoughts of the previous night. He stands there, enjoying the brief flashback, rubbing the water from his hair with a towel.

 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 my teaser from page 15:

"It's not old people. It's a...a private position. To help in someone's house, and the address is less than two miles from  your home. 'Care and companionship for a disabled man.' Can you drive?"

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

Book Reviews -- The Last Runaway and Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

(Sorry. I don't know why the print on this post is so aggressive!)

I wanted to share with you all a few books that I've enjoyed recently. I gave them both 4 stars on Goodreads. 

The Last Runaway is by Tracy Chevalier, author of The Girl with the Pearl Earring. I loved The Girl with the Pearl Earring, but Chevalier's other books  haven't lived up to that first publication. This one, The Last Runaway, comes close. The book focuses on Honor Bright, an English Quaker who decides to accompany her sister to America where the sister will be married. Honor Bright has recently been jilted by her own fiance. The trip over is horrific. Honor is so sick, she knows she would never survive the trip back across the ocean. Unfortunately, before they reach Oberlin, Ohio, Honor's sister dies. So there she is, in a new land without a plan for her future. The book does a terrific job with the character Honor. We really feel for her and how torn she is about slavery that she is confronted with in the United States. She has to choose between helping run away slaves and endangering her new-found family. I was afraid the book would become too preachy, but it avoided going there. Of course, slavery is wrong and illegal now, so there wouldn't be much point in preaching about the evils of slavery for most people. I loved the insight into the Quaker community. I recommend this book. 

I also finished reading Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. The title of the book is so cumbersome but ignore the title and give it a try. As I read it, I thought that my teenage boys might enjoy it, because, although the story is told through the main character Clay, it focuses on a 500-year-old mystery. Clay lives in San Francisco and is out of work. He takes a job at a 24-hour bookstore, working the graveyard shift where weird characters come running in during the middle of the night and breathlessly request the next book in the series. Clay has to climb a ladder stories high to find the book, which he is not allowed to open. When Clay meets a woman who works for Google, he tries to impress her by creating a computer generated map of the bookstore and he inadvertently solves the puzzle all of these characters spend years on. The goal of all the readers is to solve the mystery and they will live forever. The book was clever and fun, kind of a laid back National Treasure, but I will say that people who are searching to be immortal or a secret probably will not be amused by the way it ends: the answer to living forever isn't about being immortal.

Sigh....

My novel received its first negative review yesterday on Goodreads. I had been lecturing myself before this, warning myself that I needed to be ready for a negative review. I mean, everybody gets some bad reviews.
But I didn't expect it to send me into such a tailspin.
The reader gave me 3 out of 5 stars on her Goodreads review. Some of the comments she made, I could see. She wanted the main character Fia to be stronger. But, of course, Fia is stronger by the end of the book and she has to grow from being a bit of a pushover. The reviewer also wanted the French flirtation to have a "happy ever after" ending, which, to me, would have made Fia weaker. So those criticisms didn't hurt too much.
The thing that really got to me is she said the book (she read the actual paperback) had a lot of grammar and punctuation mistakes.
Being self-published, I felt like the grammar, punctuation, typos, all needed to be eradicated to increase my credibility as a writer.
Since I am an English teacher, criticism of grammar and punctuation goes straight to my heart. I plunged into despair, imagining my words going out there flawed.
I was in the middle of some promotions for my book and I simply stopped, thinking what's the point if there are grammar and punctuation errors. A gray cloud descended on my mood and rested there.
I mentioned the errors to my husband, the copy editor, and he asked whether I planned to fire him.
I texted another college teacher friend who read the book and asked if she'd seen them because I can make changes to correct them.
"I honestly don't remember a single one," my English teacher professor responded.
So, I was feeling a little better.
The reviewer mentioned that she was British so I wondered if there could be strange punctuation differences between the U.S. and UK. But I read plenty of British Lit and haven't noticed it.
I comforted myself a bit more by finding a typo on page 4 of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. If this top seller book has typos after all of its editors, I supposed I should expect them too.
I'm still feeling a bit down about my writing, but hopefully I'll bounce back eventually to publish some more flawed writing.

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.

Tuesday Teaser -- The Pretend 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.
This week I picked up The Pretend Wife by Bridget Asher. I can't remember why I was drawn to this book, but the book jacket says it's about imagining life with the one who got away. What if you had married someone else? How different would your life be? Here's the intro:

That summer when I first became Elliot Hull's pretend wife, I understood only vaguely that complicated things often prefer to masquerade as simple things at first. This is why they're so hard to avoid, or at least brace for. I should have know this -- it was built into my childhood. But I didn't see the complications of Elliot Hull coming, perhaps because I didn't want to. So I didn't avoid them or even brace for them, and as a result, I eventually found myself in winter watching two grown men -- my pretend husband and my real husband -- wrestle on a front lawn amid a spray of golf clubs in the snow -- such a blur of motion in the dim porch light that I couldn't distinguish one man from the other. This would become one of the most vaudevillian and poignant moments of my life, when things took the sharpest turn in a long and twisted line of smaller, seemingly simple turns.

 

This intro doesn't thrill me. I think I'm not drawn to introductions that summarize the story. I like to be pulled into the story instead.

 

 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 59:

But then Helen spoke up kind of slyly. "You need a pretend wife," she said, "for your mother's sake. It would be very gallant." She turned to me. "Gwen, you should be Elliot's pretend wife."

 

Hope you all have some books that I'm interested in.



First Chapter, Tuesday Teaser -- They Eat Puppies Don't They

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 going to try Christoher Buckley's latest They Eat Puppies Don't They. My favorite of his so far was Thank You For Smoking about a cigarette lobbyist. This one deals with government types too. Here's the opening:

The senator from the great state of New York had been droning on for over five minutes; droning about drones. 

Bird McIntyre sat in the first row behind his boss, the recipient of the senatorial cataract of words. He scribbled a note on a piece of paper and passed it forward.  

Chick Devlin glanced at the note. He let the senator continue for several more mind-numbing minutes so as not to appear prompted by Bird's note. Finally, seizing on an ellipsis, he leaned forward into the microphone across the green-baize-covered table and said, "Senator, pardon my French, but isn't the whole point to scare the shit out of them?"
 

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 63:

Lo hesitated, to show he was being courteous in vouchsafing such confidential information. "Do you want to know everything, Comrade, or just enough?"

 I'm looking forward to a fun read.

First Chapter, Tuesday Teaser -- The Vanishers

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 about three books going right now, but I'm not really satisfied with any of them, so I plucked one off the shelf and here's the intro for The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits.
 

The story I'm about to tell could be judged preposterous. Fine. Judge how you must. Protect yourself by scare quoting me as the so-called psychic, the so-called victim of a psychic attack Quarantine this account however you must so that you can safely hear it. What happened to me could never happen to you.
Tell yourself that. Even though what happened to me happens to people like you all the time.

 Hmmm. That doesn't give me much to work with.

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 a teaser from  page 27:

I arrived at Madame Ackermann's house to find her in a manic frenzy. Her feet were bare, her hair plumed from a Pucci scarf knotted on the top of her head, her eyes racooned by day-old mascara.

 

 I hope I like this one. I finished In the Bag by Kate Klise yesterday and it met my expectations as a fun, quick read with dabs of foreign travel and emotional characters. I'd recommend it. I'll let you know what I think about The Vanishers.

First Paragraph, Teaser Tuesday -- The Flight of Gemma Hardy

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 morning I'm starting The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey. I'm not sure where I heard about this book. Maybe I saw it on one of the blogs I read. A blurb about the book calls it a modern Jane Eyre. Here's the first paragraph:

We did not go for a walk on the first day of the year. The Christmas snow had melted, and rain had been falling since dawn, darkening the shrubbery and muddying the grass, but that would not have stopped my aunt from dispatching us. She believed in the benefits of fresh air for children in all weather. Later, I understood, she also enjoyed the peace and quiet of our absence. No, the cause of our not walking was my cousin Will, who claimed his cold was too severe to leave the sitting-room sofa, but not so bad that he couldn't play cards. His sister Louise, he insisted, must stay behind for a game of racing demon.

 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 120:

"Children are so bloody uncompromising," he said quietly. "You think everything's black and white, that I'm on one side and you're on the other, but, Hardy, you're more like me than you know. One day you'll see something you want -- money, or someone else's husband, or a beautiful vase -- and you'll think you'll die if you can't have it. You'll be ready to risk your whole future for a few hours, a few days with whatever it is. When that happens think of me: working out my sentence."

What do you think? Would you keep reading? Would you put it on your TBR list?

First Paragraph, Teaser Tuesday -- The Reluctant Tuscan

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.

While perusing the shelves of travel narratives, I found this book The Reluctant Tuscan by Phil Doran. The cover looks similar to the cover of A Year in Provence, which is a book I loved. Here's the first paragraph of The Reluctant Tuscan.

I had a machete in my hand and I was thinking about using it on Henry David Thoreau. You know, that guy they made you read in school who popularized the notion that we should find solace in nature. Maybe I was doing this all wrong, but I had been hacking my way through nature all morning and all I had to show for it were blisters, sweat, and a shooting pain up my arm. I didn't think I was having a heart attack, but if I were, it would have been more amusing than dealing with a hill covered in underbrush so thick it made this little corner of Tuscany look like a Brazilian rain forest.

 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 mine from page 124:

There are things I'll always miss about the States, but I can say with reasonable certainty that when I return to L.A. after a long absence, and walk into Sav-On Drugs, the employees will not drop everything and rush over to me with hugs and double-cheeked kisses. Yet, this was precisely what happened when I returned from Hollywood and walked into Gilberto's Farmacia. And I had only been gone three weeks.

What do you think?