Dreaming of France -- Preteens in France

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Since Grace is in Europe this week, I thought I'd revisit a time when my boys were in France.
Here is Spencer, age 12, on the Eiffel Tower with Paris at his back.

A fashionable 12-year-old in 2007. Note the soccer jacket and the puka shell necklace, plus the still wet hair.  

That was the first time he'd gone up the Eiffel Tower. When we took the kids 

over at ages 2, 4, and 6, only Tucker went to the top of the tower with me. 

And here's Tucker as a 10-year-old wearing a beret that we bought at a souvenir shop. We still have that beret!

Hope you're thinking about good memories of France today, too. 

Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France today. Please leave your name and blog address in Mr. Linky below, and leave a comment letting me know what  you think about my love affair with France, or your own passion for the country and its people and cultures. Also consider visiting the blogs of others who play along so we can all share the love.

Dreaming of France -- France on Pinterest

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.

One of the great things about being a Francophile is that there are so many other people who love France too. It's fun to make connections with them, to live vicariously through them, and to have them share my experiences too.
Mostly, I do that through my blog, and my novels, but today I made a discovery on Pinterest. There's a whole section called France full of people who are hankering for some Francetime, just like me.
My friend Sheila convinced me that I should join Pinterest to promote my books. She's on Pinterest because she's very crafty and also does interesting things with foods. I'm sure there are ways to promote my books on Pinterest, but I immediately got sucked into the France world.
I've created one "board" that's called "Places to Visit in 2015."
I put a map as the background and pinned 4 different places on it. I attached pictures to each place. Two of the places, I've never visited, so I could choose pictures from Pinterest. Two of the places, I've been before, so I uploaded my own pictures.
I'm not sure what to do with it now, but I guess we'll see what happens.
But the most fun will be looking at the things other people have posted. When I typed in "France," the screen that came up was full of exciting options about France. Many regions of France were represented too.

Okay, sorry, I'm back. After I posted that picture and the link, I went back to Pinterest and kind of got caught up reading the articles. And one of the new French words I learned was "hop," which is pronounced "up" and basically is used where we might mutter "okay" to ourselves. See how handy Pinterest is going to be, if I don't spend all my time reading the articles.

Hope everyone else has something lovely to share about France. Thanks for visiting and for leaving a comment. Please stop by the blogs of the others who share on Dreaming of France. 

She Likes It!

In December, I had a giveaway of my novel The Summer of France. Jacqui at French Village Diaries won the book. She finished reading and wrote a review on her blog post today.
I hope you'll stop by and take a look at her kind words. And, maybe leave a message so I don't feel like I'm all alone in the publishing/blogging world. Hello? Echo, echo.
Jacqui also think did a bang-up job summarizing my book.  I may have to hire her on as a query letter writer or a back cover writer.
If you still haven't read my book and  you're a member of Goodreads, you can sign up to win a paperback copy in another giveaway. Just click to enter. The contest goes through Feb. 15. I'd also love to be your friend on Goodreads if you want to add me.
And, as an added bonus, here's a photo from Provence, the little village of Arles.

Earl and I stayed in Arles one night during our Provence bike trip. This is the Cafe Van Gogh. Love the color of the buildings and the chairs. Wish I were sitting there in the sun, having a glass of wine with all of you.

My Book

Well, my book is still chugging along. Probably not keeping J.K. Rowling awake at night worried about the competition, but it is a totally different kind of book. There's not a single mention of a town council in my book.

This is a photo we didn't use for the
book cover. It's the front door to
 Cezanne'sstudio in Aix en Provence.

But there is an Ohio family that travels to southern France to run a bed and breakfast. Some of the chapters are told from the viewpoint of Uncle Martin. He grew up in Kentucky and traveled to Europe to fight in World War II when he was 17. When he got injured, he woke up to find a lovely French woman who would become his wife Lucie. He never moved home to Kentucky again, but he does have a secret from World War II that is catching up with him.
Hope you'll give my book a try.
I have two reviews on Kindle with four out of five stars.
RS says,  "An absorbing story, great characters and writing that sings to you. I couldn't put it down. I only wish I had discovered it on a summer vacation to read at the beach." You can read the whole review here. And sorry, RS, I know it should have been available for the summer since it's called The Summer of France. Why did it come out at the end of September? Okay, one mistake so far.
Another review by HG says, "...if you like realistic dialogue spoken by realistic characters, you will be drawn into the story without realizing it. The pace and tone feel like a "summer in France"; the twists and turns of the plot appear and then recede in a very natural way." You can read that whole review here.
Does this convince you to give my book a try? Only $4.99 to download on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Or order the paperback version for $14, plus shipping here. It'll be available in paperback at Amazon eventually, but isn't yet.