France Book Tours Continues

Most of the time, writing books is a solitary occupation.
I map out characters and family and friends. I visualize places or visit real ones.

Florence, Italy at sunset

I set actions in motion and then see what happens.
But sometimes, I get to connect to the people who read my novels. I feel a bit shy about it, I suppose, thinking of all those people who climb inside my brain, understand me a little bit better because they read the words I've put on paper.
Other times, I'm just really grateful to know that people enjoy visiting the places I've written about, hating or loving the characters in my novels.
Lisbeth at The Content Reader begins her review by revealing that she has followed my blog for awhile. She knows my back story as I sold my belongings and moved to France
And she wrote a terrific review of Falling For Provence.
Here's a glimpse:

Paulita Kincer is very well at balancing a story that plays out on different levels. We get a good glimpse of life in France, its traditions, and its people, as well as a mystery to solve. The characters are well-drawn, as are the surroundings of Provence and Paris. A well-written account of a short time in the life of Fia Jennings, her sorrows, worries, and happy moments. Touching on international history and European travel it makes for interesting, exciting, and varied reading. -- Lisbeth at the Content Reader

If you want to read the entire review, and have a chance to win a copy of the book, head over to her blog here.
Just a few days left to enter to win copies of my book. For a list of all the places with reviews, go to

Reviews Galore

My virtual book tour is moving at the speed of the internet.
It's always gratifying to receive positive reviews, to know that my words have connected with a reader.
The latest review notes the scenes in Paris in my novel Falling for Provence. Part of the story does take place there. And it made me a little verklempt remembering fond wanderings in Paris.

Meanwhile, I'm in the South of France now, can't complain, although my husband did say he wished we could do some traveling. Travel is tough during a pandemic. Spain may be closing its borders with France again as the virus revs up in Barcelona.
That's another reason why a virtual book tour is the perfect solution.
Don't worry if you can't travel this summer either. A book is a perfect way to journey with new people to new places. May I recommend:

The latest review is from  VVB32 Reads. Here's an excerpt:

Amongst family interactions and drama at a B&B in Provence, the protagonist affectionately known as Fia encounters some shady shenanigans. She gets drawn into an adventure and mystery beyond the scope of daily maintenance at the B&B which kept my attention to the end.

I hope you'll take a look. You can find my book on Amazon, Barnes&Noble or Kobo.
Or go to France Book Tours and enter a chance to win an ebook. 

FranceBookTours -- Fa La Llama La

I received this book free of charge from "the author/publisher"

Everyone who knows me is aware of my love affair with France. That's why I jumped at the chance to review a romantic comedy novel by Stephanie Dagg called Fa-La-Llama-La.

I read Dagg's previous book, a memoir called Heads Above Water, during which she describes her family's efforts to begin a holiday farm with fishing and llamas. Here's my review of Heads Above Water.  
When I began reading Fa-La-Llama-La, frankly, I was tired. I didn't know how much I'd get through that night, but I quickly got swept up in the story of poor Noelle, who had been dumped by her fiance and lost her job so she had moved back into her parents' home just in time for Christmas. By the time Noelle had agreed to pet sit some llamas, packed her car and driven across France in a worsening blizzard, I was shivering in sympathy. Dagg's word pictures took me to that darkened house in the French countryside as Noelle's luck got worse -- no power and no furniture. As she settles down to
wait out the storm in a nest of sleeping bags and blankets, she's awakened in the middle of the night by an intruder with keys. A new owner from Australia who isn't too pleased to find Noelle in his empty house and llamas in his fields which were supposed to be empty.

"They assured me they'd sold the llamas." Was I imagining it or did he sound a little less sure of himself. The torch went back to the contract.
"Well then, they're obviously homing llamas since they're out there in the field,"....

The two continue verbal sparring, which can only lead to them respecting each other as they both blunder through a snowy Christmas in France. The fact that they are both new to France helps the reader experience it as though for the first time when they tramp through the snow to take a llama to a manger scene in the church's midnight service.
The traditions of France, the strength of family, the appreciation of good food and good wine all shine through Dagg's descriptions, interwoven with the blossoming romance.
So in the end, Fa-La-Llama-La, didn't leave me shivering in the cold with Noelle; it left me feeling lovely and warm as I ended another trip to France, if only in a book.
I highly recommend Fa-La-Llama-La for a quick, escapist read and a little travel to France.
Make sure you sign up for the global giveaway open internationally.
1 participant will win a $10 gift card.

Stephanie Dagg

on Tour December 5-16 with

Fa-La-Llama-La

(Christmas romantic comedy) Release date: October 21, 2016 Self-published ASIN: B01MF7F813 165 pages

Author’s website Goodreads

SYNOPSIS

It’s very nearly Christmas and, temporarily jobless and homeless, Noelle is back at home with her parents. However, a phone call from her cousin Joe, who runs a house-and-pet-sitting service, saves her from a festive season of Whist, boredom and overindulging. So Noelle is off to France to mind a dozen South American mammals. She arrives amidst a blizzard and quickly discovers that something is definitely wrong at the farm. The animals are there all right, but pretty much nothing else – no power, no furniture and, disastrously, no fee. Add to that a short-tempered intruder in the middle of the night, a premature delivery, long-lost relatives and participation in a living crèche, and this is shaping up to be a noel that Noelle will never forget. Fa-La-Llama-La is a feel-good, festive and fun romcom with a resourceful heroine, a hero who’s a bit of a handful and some right woolly charmers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hi, I’m Stephanie Dagg. I’m an English expat living in France, having moved here with my family in 2006 after fourteen years as an expat in Ireland. I now consider myself a European rather than ‘belonging’ to any particular country. The last ten years have been interesting, to put it mildly. Taking on seventy-five acres with three lakes, two hovels and one cathedral-sized barn, not to mention an ever increasing menagerie, makes for exciting times. The current array of animals includes alpacas, llamas, huarizos (alpaca-llama crossbreds, unintended in our case and all of them thanks to one very determined alpaca male), sheep, goats, pigs, ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys, not forgetting our pets of dogs, cats, zebra finches, budgies and Chinese quail. Before we came to France we had was a dog and two chickens, so it’s been a steep learning curve. I’m married to Chris and we have three bilingual TCKs (third culture kids) who are resilient and resourceful and generally wonderful. I’m a traditionally-published author of many children’s books, and and am now self-publishing too. I have worked part-time as a freelance editor for many years after starting out as a desk editor for Hodder & Stoughton. The rest of the time I’m running carp fishing lakes with Chris and inevitably cleaning up some or other animal’s poop. Visit her website. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter Buy the book: Amazon.com | Amazon.fr | Amazon.co.uk

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You can enter the global giveaway here or on any other book blogs participating in this tour. Be sure to follow each participant on Twitter/Facebook, they are listed in the entry form below.

Enter here

Visit each blogger on the tour: tweeting about the giveaway everyday of the Tour will give you 5 extra entries each time! [just follow the directions on the entry-form] Global giveaway - international: 1 winner will receive a $10 Amazon gift card

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CLICK ON THE BANNER TO READ REVIEWS AND AN EXCERPT

 

Dreaming of France -- Falling in Love With 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.

I've written some guest posts for the FranceBookTour of my novel Paris Runaway. I thought I'd share one of the posts that I wrote for bookwormerz which ran on Sunday. It tells the story of how, after a
rocky start, I fell in love with France.

Falling in Love With France

I visited France for the first time at age 20. My college boyfriend and I went on one of those 21-day tours where we visited 14 countries, or maybe it was a 14-day trip with 21 countries. Either way, one of those countries was France.

I’d gotten sick in Rome, with Montezuma’s Revenge, and it lasted into Paris. I remember visiting Notre Dame and desperately searching for a bathroom nearby. What I found was a Turkish toilet.

Those are hard to find in France these days, but a Turkish toilet was a stall with a place for your feet to go on either side of a drain in the floor. I still can’t work out the mechanics for a woman that doesn’t result in damp underwear. That experience could have ruined my love for France, but it didn’t.

A year after college graduation I was working at a newspaper and dating a photographer, whose sister was married to a Frenchman. The sister, who was pregnant, her husband, and their two little girls had tickets to go to France for the summer, when the sister was ordered to bedr est. Someone needed to step up and travel with the girls. I volunteered.  

Here are the two girls and their grandfather, along with a couple of cousins, on the balcony in Corsica. 

I told my boss I was going and that I didn’t care whether I’d have a job when I returned. Picture me as a bossy, impetuous 22 –year-old. (Luckily, they found a summer intern and my job waited for me.)

So with two little girls and a Frenchman I didn’t know, we flew to Paris. The first few days could have ruined my love affair with France as I took the girls on a bus to their great-grandmother’s apartment in the Latin Quarter of Paris. But the bus went the opposite direction that we needed and we ended up on an impromptu, hot, diesel-fueled tour of Paris, getting off at several stops in hopes of finding our way.  Another day I got separated from the girls when they stepped through a Metro stall with sliding doors, and the doors closed before I could follow them. A flight attendant behind me had an extra ticket and used it to reunite me with the girls.

But every negative experience melted away as I traveled with the girls and their grandparents over the next three months. We flew to Corsica and spent our days splashing in the Mediterranean and enjoying each meal as a symphony of tastes and textures. 

Me, on the beach. There are probably naked, or at least topless, people right behind me. 

Our evenings filled with concerts and tennis matches and nights on the veranda watching the star-spangled sky for the slowly moving space station.

When we returned to mainland France, we stayed one night in Aix en Provence. I can still remember the thrill of coming home that rippled through me when I stepped onto Cours Mirabeau, the wide boulevard lined with plane trees.

For a month, we stayed in the family’s country home near Bourges. The house came into the family during Napoleon’s reign, and it had served as a base for the Germans when they invaded during World War II, then the Americans when they drove back the Germans. The numerous sets of French doors opened onto a yard, which led to fields of sheep and flocks of chickens. We walked to the village for bread each day, stopping to feed a pony.

Here I am, prepared for dinner, as I sit on the terrace writing. I wish you could see my
adorable ankle socks and aqua shoes that matched my top, but this print is not the best quality.

Finally, we returned to Paris and the grandparents’ apartment in the suburbs. The grandmother urged me to explore the city while she watched the girls, and, oh, what adventures I had as I wandered alone.

I’ve included memories from this trip in all of my novels set in France – The Summer of France, I See London I See France, and Paris Runaway.

In each of my French novels, I try to recapture the magical experiences of that first immersion into France – the trip that taught me the importance of savoring each bite of luscious nectarine, rather than worrying about the juice that ran down my arm.

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 love affair. And consider visiting the blogs of others who play along so we can all share the love. 

I'm also linking to Paris in July. Hope you'll play along with both Dreaming of France and Paris in July. We can't have too much France love, right?

France Book Tours -- Taking The Cross

Today, my husband Earl is writing a review of Taking the Cross by Charles Gibson for France Book Tours. 

Click the banner to see the entire tour for Taking the Cross and to follow the author's social media.

The back cover of author Charles Gibson’s latest work says he has written for an “inspirational book series.” With that notice and a title such as “Taking the Cross” the reader might think Gibson’s book is a proselytizing piece of historical fiction.

Fortunately, Gibson’s interest in history wins out in a well-written account of sacrifice in the face of religious intolerance.

Early in the 13th century, Pope Innocent III wanted to solidify the Catholic Church’s hold on Christendom. In that era that meant converting heretics — basically anyone, including Christian sects — who didn't follow Rome’s interpretation of Catholicism. Failing that, there was always the crusader’s sword.

The setting is the Languedoc region of southern France, at that time an area where nobility tolerated various reformist religious strains, including some that would be considered New Age or humanist today.

The fictional hero is Andreas, a knight who has fought Rome’s wars in the Holy Land and is now the protector of Raimon Roger Trencavel, a historical figure who was viscount of Carcassonne, Albi and Beziers. Trencavel was loyal to the Church of Rome but also believes the Albigensians and

Waldensians, who viewed poverty as the way to perfection.

To eliminate the Protestant threat, the pope sends his “warring hosts” into the region to convert or kill. Raimon Roger seeks a meeting with the papal legate commander to avoid bloodshed but is refused.

The ensuing massacre of entire cities — an estimated 20,000 in Beziers alone — begins 20 years of back and forth battles that depopulates much of the Occitan region.

The suspense and action of battle will give the hardiest reader of war stories the shivers. The violence is graphic but not gratuitous and is true to the age.

Andreas, Raimon Roger and their loyal knights, all who fought for Rome, now sacrifice much in their attempts to protect those considered heretics by their church. Throughout the book they adhere to “paratge,” whose exact definition the reader is left to surmise but whose adherents say go beyond honor and chivalry.

Andreas and other characters experience mystical dreams that portend danger and are dreams of the world to come. Some dream scenes are overly long and only when well into the book was it translucently vague to this reader do they portray good and evil, heavenly and satanic.

Gibson describes a region and crisis of France probably unfamiliar to most readers; it’s a different look at a country and age all too familiar. The characters have substance, whether a heroic night or a young woman in a new religious order trying to learn the secret of a letter from her father.

Over-explanation of some heraldic terms can be forgiven considering the complex thoughts threaded through the book. The writing is above par and well-researched but could a finer editing touch – some time transitions are jarring and descriptions are repeated too close together.

Overall, this Taking the Cross has several satisfying personalities: a tale of heroism in battle, a spiritual travelogue through time, or an historical look at one of France’s lesser known regions.

About the Author:

Charles Gibson first started reading about history and geography when he was seven. He

wrote his first short story at the age of nine. He continues to read and write whenever he can. Charles has spent many years researching the Middle Ages and the Crusades, and has traveled to the Languedoc region in France. He has combined the passions of history and geography and prose to finish his first novel, Taking the Cross. It takes place during the summer of 1209 in France. Charles Gibson has previously written for the inspirational book series God Allows U-Turns as well as for a Minnesota newspaper.
He also works as a project manager for a medical device company. He also loves travel writing,
and would like to start his own magazine some day about travel as a journey through life.The dominant theme of his writing is freedom. “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”
He lives in Minnesota with his lovely wife and energetic sons. He can be reached at cg [at] charlesgibson [dot] net

Visit his website. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter , Google + Enter to win a print copy of this book. Open to anyone in the U.S. or internationally.

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France Booktours -- The Sharp Hook of Love

Click on the picture to be linked to the entire tour for 

The Sharp Hook of Love along with the author's social media sites.

Tackling a true-life love story can be daunting. After all, people who are familiar with the story already know how it ends, and this one, the story of Heloise and Abelard in Medieval France, does not have a happily-ever-after ending. Yet author Sherry Jones paints an intricate and delicate portrait of the historical characters in her novel The Sharp Hook of Love. The characters' love, confusion and fear feel contemporary rather than Middle Ages.
Heloise is a strong female character at a time when women were not expected to think for themselves. She is highly educated in the hopes that she can become the abbess of a nearby convent. But her studies take her into the path of Pierre Abelard and her focus changes from academia to passion.

I can't imagine the amount of research and the leap of imagination it took for Jones to bring these historical characters to life.

Quietly, so as not to awaken my uncle or Jean, we crept down the stairs and out the front door to confront the mysteries of the planets and wheeling stars, the moon hanging low like ripe fruit on a branch. He led me across the street and through the vineyards to the river. I followed him to the bank's edge, tiptoeing over my misgivings. What did he intend for me out here, shielded by the vines from everyone's view? In the moon's orange glow I could see dark shapes all along the bank, couples lying in each other's arms or strolling beside the churning deep. Breezes soughed across the swift-moving waters, edging the night with chill. I rubbed my arms, wishing that I had brought a blanket or cotte. 

Can't you almost feel it?
If you enjoy historical romances, I think you don't want to miss this one.

Make sure you enter the giveaway below.

Synopsis
“To forbid the fruit only sweetens its flavor”
Among the young women of 12th century Paris, Heloise d’Argenteuil stands apart. Extraordinarily educated and quick-witted, she is being groomed by her uncle to become an abbess in the service of God.
But with one encounter, her destiny changes forever. Pierre Abelard, headmaster at the Nôtre Dame Cloister School, is acclaimed as one of the greatest philosophers in France. His controversial reputation only adds to his allure, yet despite the legions of women swooning over his poetry and dashing looks, he is captivated by the brilliant Heloise alone. As their relationship blossoms from a meeting of the minds to a forbidden love affair, both Heloise and Abelard must choose between love, duty, and ambition.
Sherry Jones weaves the lovers’ own words into an evocative account of desire and sacrifice. As intimate as it is erotic, as devastating as it is beautiful, The Sharp Hook of Love is a poignant, tender tribute to one of history’s greatest romances, and to love’s power to transform and endure.  [provided by the author]
Enter the giveaway for a print copy in the U.S. or an ebook copy internationally.

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France Book Tours -- The Church of Tango

I'm just going to say straight up that I had to check a couple of times to see that The Church of Tango by Cherie Magnus was actually a memoir rather than fiction. Some of the things that happened seemed so unbelievable -- but you know what they say about truth being stranger...

The memoir begins with the death of Cherie's husband. Her tenacity and her adventurous spirit afterward are amazing. 

Of course, since the book is on France Book Tours, I figured part of it had to take place in France, and I was right. 

She visits Paris right away, renting a room from an older woman.

Madame indicated that I shouldn't make myself at home in the rest of the apartment. I noticed the telephone in the dining room had a padlock on it, not that I had anyone to call. The stale cookies had left a dusty taste in my mouth, and so I went across the street to sit over a creme on the sidewalk of the Cafe de l'Esperance, now open and filling up with after-Mass and instead-of-Mass habitues. My ears ached with listening to them all speaking French as I stirred my coffee and looked around with amazement. here I was, at age forty-eight, suddenly on my own in Paris, transported as if by magic. There was no place on earth I would rather be, nothing else I would rather be doing. It had been three years since I had had a moment like this. Los Angeles was far away, so was the despair and depression I had lived with for so long. 

Through all of her difficulties -- health, emotional, and financial -- Cherie had tango to pull her through. Her fascination with tango took her around the world and into the arms of men equally passionate about tango, and a few of them passionate about her, as well. 

I'm not going to pretend that I understood Cherie's passion for tango. I've attempted to learn it a few times without much success, but I do understand when people find something that they love to do and want to do it constantly. Cherie's love for tango was the passion that took her on her adventures, and I truly enjoyed the journey along with her in her well-written memoir. 

I'm not sure if the author meant to teach the lessons that I learned, but I'll go ahead and share them with you. 

Cherie's financial troubles were closely connected to the sale of her beautiful home in California. It was a home that she felt she couldn't afford after her husband died, but she really had no stability afterward as she moved from France, to an apartment in California, to an apartment in Mexico, to Argentina.

Also, being a naive Midwesterner, I couldn't believe the way people treated her. When her husband died, he had been in a business deal with several other men. Those men realized the business deal was going south, so they transferred all of their assets into their wives' name. Cherie was the only one left holding the bag because her husband died. I can't believe real people would do that, would treat a widow that way, but they did.

Cherie also got ripped off by her realtor, who couldn't advertise her house, so he kept lowering the price and eventually bought it himself when he felt the price was low enough. Again, I was shocked.

The final financial blow came from the couple with whom she and her husband owned an apartment in France. Apparently, in France, people have mortgage insurance so that if one partner dies, the mortgage is paid off. Here was a chance for Cherie to hold onto some property and some security. But the couple who shared the house, brought a lawyer to their meeting and said instead of Cherie's half being paid off, all of their payments were lowered. They said Cherie was still responsible for part of the mortgage. She ended up selling the apartment to them at an unfair price too.

You'd think that after all of that, plus fighting breast cancer, Cherie would be ready to give up, but she wasn't. She held onto her curiosity for life, and she kept dancing. Her life should be an inspiration for all of us.
Go to the bottom of this post to enter for a chance to win the ebook. It's open internationally. 

Synopsis  

More than a metaphor and much more than a dance, the Tango takes Cherie from being a widow with suicidal tendencies to traveling the world in search of herself, finding love, sorrow and serenity. Her quest takes her to France where she falls in love with aristocratic Olivier, and to Argentina where she falls in love with the tango. Along the way she discovers and deals with her own two separate breast cancers and the loss of all that she’d previously valued. Relationships in the desperate singles world is a whole new dance to learn, before being blessed at the Church of Tango.
The Church of Tango captivates readers struggling with tragic loss, illness, and death, as well as those who are passionate about travel and adventure, who long for love, or who delight in dance of all kinds.
Gold Medal winner 2013 of the Wishing Shelf Book Award

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France Book Tours -- A Paris Apartment

 

 Somehow, I missed the news story about the Paris apartment that was untouched for 70 years since World War II and filled with treasures from the Belle Epoque. I read this novel, A Paris Apartment by Michelle Gable, not knowing that many of the details included were based on the actual story. That apartment was discovered in 2010.
The author must have been inspired immediately to begin creating her character, April, a furniture specialist for Sotheby's. In the midst of a marriage in turmoil, April is sent to Paris to help catalog the exotic furniture. Instead of focusing on the furniture, she is entranced by the journals of the former owner, a demimondaine, or courtesan during the turn of the 20th century. The book alternates chapters between the life of 21st century April and 20th century Marthe who struggled to survive and thrive in Paris by attaching herself to rich men and falling in love with a struggling painter.
I loved the rich descriptions of the objects in the apartment and the even more vivid imaginings about the life that took place in the apartment.
Running parallel to the events in the journal, is April's own uncertainty about her marriage and her attraction to the French attorney representing the owner.
And a strand throughout all of it is April's love of Paris, a place that helped her avoid her own family's messy past. One of my favorite parts of the book was when the very controlled April goes to a nearby boulangerie:

A bell tinkled overhead. Though the smell was intoxicating enough to make even the pickiest of Parisians fret with indecisiveness, April knew exactly what she wanted. She tiptoed to the glass case.
Bonjour, les chouquettes, I've missed you.
Chouquettes. The perfect pastry. Puffed up. Light. They came in two versions, dusted with sugar granules or chocolate chips. April elected the sucre perle. If you were in Paris, your food might as well glitter. 

She buys a dozen and gorges on them while immersed in the journals of the Belle Epoque. I love that the character is impulsive and a little out of control.
I also enjoyed the fact that the main character was well-respected expert in her field and didn't apologize for being a businesswoman, even when the Frenchman accused her of working too hard.
I zipped through this book, anxious to see what happened next.
I'd definitely recommend picking it up and whiling away some time in Paris.
If you live in the U.S. or Canada, make sure you enter to win a paperback copy at the bottom of this post. Good luck!

Synopsis from the publisher:

Bienvenue à Paris!
When April Vogt’s boss tells her about an apartment in the ninth arrondissement that has been discovered after being shuttered for the past seventy years, the Sotheby’s continental furniture specialist does not hear the words “dust” or “rats” or “decrepit.” She hears Paris. She hears escape.
Once in France, April quickly learns the apartment is not merely some rich hoarder’s repository. Beneath the cobwebs and stale perfumed air is a goldmine, and not because of the actual gold (or painted ostrich eggs or mounted rhinoceros horns or bronze bathtub). First, there’s a portrait by one of the masters of the Belle Epoque, Giovanni Boldini. And then there are letters and journals written by the very woman in the painting, Marthe de Florian. These documents reveal that she was more than a renowned courtesan with enviable decolletage. Suddenly April’s quest is no longer about the bureaux plats and Louis-style armchairs that will fetch millions at auction. It’s about discovering the story behind this charismatic woman.
It’s about discovering two women, actually.
With the help of a salty (and annoyingly sexy) Parisian solicitor and the courtesan’s private diaries, April tries to uncover the many secrets buried in the apartment. As she digs into Marthe’s life, April can’t help but take a deeper look into her own. Having left behind in the States a cheating husband, a family crisis about to erupt, and a career she’s been using as the crutch to simply get by, she feels compelled to sort out her own life too. When the things she left bubbling back home begin to boil over, and Parisian delicacies beyond flaky pâtisseries tempt her better judgment, April knows that both she and Marthe deserve happy finales.
Whether accompanied by croissants or champagne, this delectable debut novel depicts the Paris of the Belle Epoque and the present day with vibrant and stunning allure. Based on historical events, Michelle Gable’s A Paris Apartment will entertain and inspire, as readers embrace the struggles and successes of two very unforgettable women. 

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FranceBookTours -- From Here To Paris Review and Giveaway

It's time for another France Book Tours review. This one is From Here to Paris by Cris Hammond. 

Ever since I first read A Year in Provence, I've enjoyed memoirs about ex-pats who move to France. This one was no exception. Make sure you enter the giveaway at the end to win a copy of this ebook, which is open to everyone in the U.S. and internationally 

The author had lost his job in California and started a new business taking pictures of boats in San Francisco Bay then selling the pictures online to the boats' owners. During the grueling work, he got smitten by the idea of spending time in France and ended up buying a barge that would travel up the rivers and canals of France. He had to deal with renovations of the barge, learning how to take the barge through the locks without getting bowled over by much larger ships, and life in France. The scenes in France were colorful and took me right there with each glass of wine and each painting the author created. Once he had his priorities straight, living in France, he started drawing and painting again. And he was able to sell his paintings to earn money. It made me nudge my own artistic husband. "Couldn't we move to France if you started painting?" I asked.

My husband read the beginning of this book and enjoyed it -- laughing out loud even -- so I had to buy a copy for him to read too. 

The book had a number of funny stories along with remembrances from his childhood and life with his father. One of his difficulties moving to France was the language, like his morning trip to the bakery to buy a croissant.

As I stood there, gazing upon the scene of sensual delights, I would be overcome with a feeling of imminent doom. Since arriving in St. Jean de Losne, I had come every morning to this little family-owned boulangerie presided over by Madame La Pattissier herself, and had asked her for the same thing: one croissant and one baguette. Did her eyes brighten with recognition when she saw me? Did she smile warmly and say, "Bonjour, Monsieur Cris. Comment ca va?" and then reach for her most perfectly formed croissant? Did she call to her husband in the back to bring out the cart of loaves he'd just pulled hot from the oven?
Non! Every morning she looked at me as if I had just run over her cat. The problem was that croissants and baguettes have a sex, a gender, and at that hour of the morning, I could never remember which was which. Normally, I don't concern myself with the gender of pastry, but in this shop it was critical, because I wanted just one baguette and one croissant. There was a female way to say one, which was une. And there was a male way to say it, un. If the gender of the number didn't match the gender of the pastry, in this patisserie you were dead meat. 

Although I enjoyed reading about this life on a barge, it definitely convinced me that I wouldn't want to travel through France on a barge. They move so slowly. It would drive me crazy. My husband and I decided that barge travel probably wasn't the best choice for type-A personalities like me. Traveling on a barge might not be my first choice, but I definitely enjoyed reading about it.
Cris Hammond is a nationally known artist, cartoonist, and entrepreneur. His comic strip, Speed Walker, Private Eye, was seen daily in over 150 newspapers across the country, from The Miami Herald to The Seattle Sun Times, The San Diego Union, and The Minneapolis Star Tribune. His paintings of ships and the sea have appeared in galleries in Sausalito, San Francisco, Tiburon, and Carmel, California. He led special effects teams to Academy Awards for Special Effects in motion pictures including Star Trek IV, Innerspace, and The Abyss, among others. In 1994, facing penury, he left his artistic pursuits, bought a briefcase and a couple ties, and went out and got a real corporate job. Eight years and four more neckties later, he walked into his office one morning and was ambushed by the waiting Exit Interview Team, which informed him that he was, as of that moment, “out on his ear.”
After a suitable period of bi-polar careening between panic and reflection, he realized that he was too young to retire and too old to go looking for another corporate job. So, he sold the house, bought a barge in France and started painting again.
Now he and his wife, Linda, spend half the year in California living and working in their tiny art studio near San Francisco, and the other half doing the same thing on the barge in France. Piloting their 1925 Dutch barge Phaedra, they’ve meandered through more than 1200 kilometers of canals and rivers and negotiated more than 850 locks in their travels from the Rhone wine region, through Burgundy to Chablis and down the Seine into Paris.

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France Book Tours -- The Collector of Dying Breaths

Today I'm reviewing The Collector of Dying Breaths by M.J. Rose for France Book Tours. The name of the author may sound familiar because I interviewed the author and reviewed another book by her last May. Here's my interview after she wrote Seduction.
Although reading the previous books are not required, this book follows those same characters in Paris, as Jac L'Etoile, a woman who has fought against her past-life experiences, tries to discover why her brother died mysteriously. She takes over her brother's research of a famous French parfumier, René le Florentin,

Author M.J. Rose

and his hope to bring people back to life by saving their last breaths. The novel is told in present time through Jac and through the parfumier in the 1500s, under the reign of Catherine of Medici in France. René le Florentin collects bottles of breaths of those he loves in the hopes of continuing his mentor's work.

I watched the shallow rise and fall of his chest. Listened to the rattle of his breath. As his student, I had memorized all his instructions. I had seen him perform this duty but had never done it myself.
His quest was to capture a person's last elusive exhalation, to collect his dying breath, then to release it into another living body and reanimate that soul. To bring it back from the dead.

I could see in the 1500s that someone might not have dealt with the ethical issues of this, but it would be a little more difficult in present day. Still, they're fascinated by the idea, especially Melinoe, a Greek heiress who buys whatever she wants and had hired Jac's brother and then Jac to solve the mystery.

Mostly though, this is a story about love and how we often sabotage ourselves. Whether the novel is in present day or 16th century France, love is the most important ingredient.
 The sensory details in this book are so rich and the plot is extravagant as well.

There it was again...that timbre in his voice that fitted the way he had looked at Melinoe -- no gazed at her. Up til now, she guessed that it was lust. She heard it so clearly now in his tone. It was in every syllable of how he spoke her name. his voice deepened around the word, which slid out as if he were forming it carefully, feeling every syllable with his tongue. 

It took me a few chapters to get hooked by this book, but now that I know how it ends, I've gone back and read the beginning chapters again. It all ties together so well. The clues were there from the very beginning.
Definitely an intriguing read.
Here's a synopsis from the publisher:
From one of America’s most imaginative storytellers comes a passionate tale of love and treachery, spanning the days of Catherine de Medici’s court to the twenty-first century and starring a woman drawn back, time and again, to the past.
In 1533, an Italian orphan with an uncanny knack for creating fragrance is plucked from poverty to become Catherine de Medici’s perfumer. To repay his debt, over the years René le Florentine is occasionally called upon to put his vast knowledge to a darker purpose: the creation of deadly poisons used to dispatch the Queen’s rivals.
But it’s René’s other passion—a desire to reanimate a human breath, to bring back the lives of the two people whose deaths have devastated him—that incites a dangerous treasure hunt five centuries later. That’s when Jac L’Etoile—suffering from a heartache of her own—becomes obsessed with the possibility of unlocking Rene’s secret to immortality.
Soon Jac’s search reconnects her with Griffin North, a man she’s loved her entire life. Together they confront an eccentric heiress whose art collection rivals many museums and who is determined to keep her treasures close at hand, not just in this life but in her next.
Set in the forest of Fontainebleau, crisscrossing the lines between the past and the present, M.J. Rose has written a mesmerizing tale of passion and obsession. This is a gothic tale perfect for fans of Anne Rice, Deborah Harkness, and Diana Galbadon

France Book Tours -- Confessions of a Paris Party Girl

France Book Tours asked me to review a copy of Confessions of a Paris Party Girl by Vicki Lesage. 

Here's the synopsis from the author:

Wine, romance, and French bureaucracy – the ups and downs of an American’s life in Paris. This laugh-out-loud memoir is almost too funny to be true!

 Drinking too much bubbly. Meeting sappy Frenchmen who have girlfriends or are creeps or both. Encountering problème after problème with French bureaucracy. When newly-single party girl Vicki moved to Paris, she was hoping to taste wine, stuff her face with croissants, and maybe fall in love. In her first book, this long-time blogger and semi-professional drinker recounts the ups and downs of her life in Paris. Full of sass, shamefully honest admissions, and situations that seem too absurd to be true, Vicki makes you feel as if you’re stumbling along the cobblestones with her.

Will she find love? Will she learn to consume reasonable amounts of alcohol? Will the French administration ever cut her a break?

 This memoir traces the lucky life of Vicki who moved to Paris in her 20s and made an exciting new French life. Part Bridget Jones' Diary, part Le Mariage by Diane Johnson, the author takes us on a roller coaster of ex-pat fun.

Those of us who are enamored of France imagine what life would be like if we moved there. Mostly we dream of baguettes and wine. We don't really picture the difficulties.

The author pulls no punches in laying out the difficulties. Making life a little harder for herself, she parties like Bridget Jones and has many regrets afterwards. 

We ordered off the English menu anyway, and passed the evening in a blur of indulgent food and copious amounts of wine. I recall a tasty after-dinner drink (or three) comprised of white wine, wild berry liqueur and cognac. I'm sure I no longer had any control over the volume of my voice.....In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have had so many after-dinner drinks. Then again, they shouldn't make them taste like Kool-Aid if they don't want me to order fifty of them. Who can win a fight against wild berry liqueur? 

 I'm well past my partying days, and mostly as the author described her overindulgences, I felt glad I had moved on.

Vicki Lesage is an IT Director by day, writer
by night. And a full-time nerd. She loves fondue,
 wine, math, and zombies.She lives in Paris with her
 French husband and rambunctious son.

Much more interesting to me were all of the French quirks of culture, like yogurt as dessert. I loved hearing about the classes she had to take to be allowed to work in France. And who knew about the number of hoops someone has to jump through to get married to a Frenchman. That was really fascinating. I wonder if they could have avoided it by getting married in the United States.
But what Francophile girl hasn't dreamed of being married in Paris? The author achieves this goal.

At the crack of dawn on Saturday, we headed to our appointment with Père Nicolas. Normally sleeping off a hangover at this hour, I saw a new Paris during the five-minute walk. Store owners straightening their shops, old ladies rolling their grocery caddies, street cleaners sprucing up the sidewalks....
According to the rules of the French Catholic Church, you have to get married in the church in your quartier unless you are an active member of another church. I supposed this was to avoid everyone clamoring to marry in Notre Dame of Sacré Coeur.

 I loved seeing the details of planning the marriage and pulling it off.
This was a fun read and I recommend it. Maybe for vacation, or if you can't afford a vacation this year. Go to Paris and sow your wild oats in this memoir.

First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser -- The Collector of Dying Breaths

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 a new book for France Book Tours. It's The Collector of Dying Breaths by MJ

Rose. I've read another novel by her that I enjoyed. The attention to scent detail is amazing. This book is about the man who became the perfumer for Catherine de Medici and somehow becomes obsessed with bringing two people back to life. Hope it doesn't go too sci fi on me. The book comes out on April 8, but I received a preview copy from the publisher.
Here's the intro:

March 1, 1573, Barbizon, France.
Written for my son to read upon my death, from his father, René le Florentin, perfumer to Catherine de Medici, Queen Mother.
It is with irony now, forty years later, to think that if I had not been called a murderer on the most frightening night of my life, there might not be any perfume in Paris today. And that scent -- to which I gave my all and which gave me all the power and riches I could have hoped for -- is at the heart of why now it is I who call myself a murderer.

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 45% on my Kindle:

"His time at court must come to an end," Henry said. "You are right. If the Protestants were to hear that my wife was engaged in black magic and spread rumors to that effect, it could be ruinous for her and for me." 

It looks like this book has a modern-day character from one of her previous books, Seduction, which I reviewed in May 2013. Check back on April 9 for my review of The Collector of Dying Breaths.

FranceBookTours -- My Wish List

 This book combines two of my favorite dreams, France and winning the lottery.
Of course, the main character in  this book is not one of those people who always imagines what she would do if she won the lottery. She only plays because the women who work for her, in her little fabric notion shop, egg her on to play.
She buys the ticket and doesn't think about it again. The main character, Jocelyne, is 47 and lives in a small town in France. She knows her husband wants more out of life, more things, like a flat-screen TV and a Porsche, but Jocelyne is fairly content, even though her husband doesn't pay her a lot of attention. Overall, she judges her life to be just fine. She has grown children, a son and a daughter. Her relationship with her daughter is close; her son is more distant.
Jocelyne also writes a blog about sewing notions that is slowly growing in popularity, so popular that a local reporter interviews her for a story.
So what did I think about this book? It had lovely writing and real characters.
Here's Jocelyne's description of the twins who work in her sewing shop:

The twins are pretty. Of course, I know they exploit me to set off their small waists, long legs and clear, doelike, deliciously startled eyes. They smile at men lunching on their own or with their partners, they simper, they sometimes coo. Their bodies cast out messages, their sighs are bottles thrown into the sea and sometimes a man picks up one of those bottles and there's just time for a cup of coffee, a whispered promise, disillusionment -- men have so little imagination.

The situations seem real. The insight into the characters and what each of them would do is genuine. When Jocelyne wins the lottery, she has to go to Paris to collect her winnings and she tells no one. I wonder if it's true that in France a winner has to go through some counseling about how her life will change. I don't think that happens in the U.S. I wonder if it really does in France?
Jocelyne's life changes, of course. In some ways better, some ways worse, but I think she partially brings it on herself by hiding the fact that she wins.
With her lottery check in hand, Jocelyne visits Chanel in Paris and has an encounter with a saleswoman:

My gray coat is old, but incredibly comfortable, my flat shoes -- I chose them early this morning because my feet swell in the train -- my shapeless, well-worn bag... she smiles at me. Don't hesitate to ask me anything  you'd like to know. She moves away, discreetly elegant. 

I don't think workers at an expensive shop in the United States would be so kind to someone who appears out of their element. Think Pretty Woman when Julia Roberts' character had to bring back the rich man to get any service.
One thing about this book -- it's called a novel, but it is very short. I think novella might be a better description of it. I mention it only because I wouldn't want readers to be disappointed. A French woman told me that novels are shorter in France, but this seems much shorter than other French novels I've read. When I look at it on my Kindle, it tells me the reading time is one hour and 33 minutes. The file is about one-sixth the size of my first novel, which was 227 pages long.
Another thing that some readers seem sensitive to is Delacourt writing in first person as a woman and focusing a lot on how she looks. That's she written by a man, so it can seem sexist. That didn't really bother me.
The book is still well worth reading. I just feel cautions about the length are necessary. And I would have liked the book to continue.
I hope you all enjoy this book as much as I did, because even for a short time, it whisked me away to a French lifestyle.

Synopsis provided by the publisher:

A cathartic, charmingly tender, assuredly irresistible novel, MY WISH LIST (Penguin; ISBN: 9780143124658; On-sale: March 25, 2014: $15.00) imagines one answer to the question: If you won the lottery, would you trade your life for the life of your dreams? With sales of more than half a million copies in France alone, rights sold in twenty-five countries, and a major motion picture in development, this slim yet spirited tale has sewn up the interest of the literary world.

Jocelyne Guerbette is a forty-seven year old who runs a modest fabric shop in a nondescript provincial French town. Her husband—instead of dreaming of her—wants nothing more in life than a flat-screen TV and the complete James Bond DVD box set. And to Jocelyne’s two grown-up children, who live far from home, she’s become nothing but an obligatory phone call. Perpetually wondering what has happened to all the dreams she had when she was younger, Jocelyne finally comes to terms with the series of ordinary defeats and small lies that seem to make up her life.

But then Jocelyne wins the lottery: $25,500,000! And suddenly she finds the world at her fingertips. But before cashing the check, before telling a soul, she starts making a list of all the things she could do with the money. While evaluating the small pleasures in life—her friendship with  the twins who manage the hairdresser next door, her holidays away, her sewing blog that’s gaining popularity—she begins to think that the everyday ordinary may not be so bad. Does she really want her life to change?

MY WISH LIST is an essential reminder of the often-overlooked joys of everyday life and a celebration of the daily rituals, serendipities, and small acts of love that make life quietly wonderful [provided by the publisher

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. 

FranceBookTours -- Reviews of My Latest Novel

If you get a chance, I hope you'll stop by some of the blogs posting reviews of my latest  novel I See London I See France.
Isn't it nice to read complimentary things about yourself? So far, so good. Though I know not everyone likes the same kinds of books.

So far my book has been kindly reviewed on three websites. Words and Peace by Emma said, "VERDICT: If you like travel (Ah, Paris! Provence!), family issues, strong women trying to find their real place in life, and a touch of romance, don’t hesitate a second, this book is right for you!"

Next at Blog in France, Stephanie said, "The novel is absorbing, beautifully written and fabulously enjoyable. It also offers us a gentle reminder that relationships need working at.... Teenage first crazy love is contrasted with married love and life, temptation with loyalty, self-indulgence with duty. There’s comedy, sadness, romance, bitterness, temptation, discipline – Paulita Kincer keeps us gripped."

Then Wednesday, Jacqui on French Village Diaries wrote, "Paulita’s writing went straight to my head; I felt every emotion Caroline was feeling, so much so this book affected my mood even when I wasn’t reading it. This book has a great story line, moved along at a nice pace and with some added interest as it jumped back and forward from the present to her time in Aix en Provence as a nanny in the late 1990’s. This is a book I will read again and I hope Paulita is busy working on her next novel."

The tour continues tomorrow. I could read positive reviews all day, still, before every review, I brace myself just in case.
Thanks to everyone for their support.