Saturday Snapshot -- Book Cover

I'm sharing a snapshot that friend took, which almost became a book cover for my new novel Trail Mix.
The book is about two friends who decide to hike the Appalachian Trail as the ultimate diet plan as their lives are in flux -- kids going off to college, jobs and relationships changing. They aren't sure who they are anymore.

I love the hazy blue mountains in this picture and the way my friend Noreen looks so awed by the mountains. She's also very authentic with her bed pad and her walking pole.

But in the end, I went for a more polished picture for the cover.

What do you think? It's available now for pre-order on Amazon for Kindle. Hopefully the paperback will be up there soon too. 

Here's the blurb:

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

Looking forward to seeing all your Saturday Snapshots too.

First Paragraph -- Chestnut Street by Maeve Binchy

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.
Maeve Binchy has taken me to Ireland so many times. Finding this posthumously published book thrilled me Chestnut Street. Here's the intro.

so I could take one more trip. I'm currently lost in her many working class stories in the book

It was all the harder because her mother had been so beautiful. If only Dolly's mother had been a round, bunlike woman, or a small wrinkled person, it might have been easier for Dolly, this business of growing up. But no, there were no consolations on that score. Mother was tall and willowy and had a smile that made other people smile too and a laugh that caused strangers to look up with pleasure. Mother always knew what to say and said it; Mother wore long lilac silk scarves so elegantly they seemed to flow with her when she walked. If dolly tried to wear a scarf, either it looked like a bandage or else she got mistaken for a football fan. If you were square and solid and without color or grace, it was sometimes easy to hate Mother. 

 This book is a series of short stories all connected to Chestnut Street. Sometimes the characters appear in each other's stories, but most the time they stand alone.

Terrific Review of My Novel

I can't help tooting my own horn and directing you all to take a look at Sim's review of my novel I See London I See France. She reviewed it on her blog Chapter 1 Take 1.
Here's an excerpt:
Perhaps because the main character, Caroline is so richly drawn, flaws and all, and because her story is so relatable, I See London, I See France really resonated with me, frequently bringing me to tears.
Tears? It's like an author's dream -- not that I want to make people cry, but I love the idea that people are moved by the characters I write.
The travel caught her imagination too:
Deftly preventing the tone from becoming too melancholy, the author packs the book with all the charms of travel, making me feel like I was on the trip too, my suitcase squeezed into a corner of the hotel room, ready to see the sights
Sim has asked me to write a post about who I envision starring in the movie of my book.
That is so much fun.
I'll let you all know when that post is up.

Dreaming of France -- I See London I See France

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.
Finally, my latest novel I See London I See France is available.
It's a fun, women's fiction novel with the exhaustion of mothering and a hint of romance.
Here's the blurb:

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

I wrote this book originally when the kids were little. It was my first novel, but I put it away. I've revised it a few times and I'm really happy with its latest revision. I added flashbacks throughout as the main character remembers her college crush with an older Frenchman Jean-Marc. Part of Caroline's quest through Europe is to learn whether she settled for the wrong man by marrying her husband.
And where did those ideas and feelings for Frenchman come from? My very own trip to France when I was 22.
I've sworn my kids to secrecy -- because we are still connected to the family in France-- but I had a major crush on one of the brothers.

This snapshot doesn't do justice to my French crush, but imagine learning to sail in the Mediterranean with a handsome French doctor. The character in my book is a little more extreme, but has a lot of the same yummy qualities. 

Here's a link to the paperback version of I see London I See France.

The Amazon link for a Kindle version at $4.99 is here, and the Nook link is here.

I hope  my book helps other to Dream of France too.

Can't wait to see what you post this week.

First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser -- The Perfume Collector

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 awash in books that I'm excited to read. The cover alone of The Perfume Collector would pull me in.

The novel by Kathleen Tessaro is even endorsed by Marian Keyes, one of my favorite authors, and set in France. I don't even have to open it to know I'll love it. But I hope it lives up to my expectations.
Here's the intro:

Eva d"Orsey sat at the kitchen table, listening to the ticking clock, a copy of Le Figaro in front of her. This was the sound of time, moving away from her.
Taking another drag from a cigarette, she looked out of the window, into the cold misty morning. Paris was waking now, the grey dawn, streaked with orange, seeping slowly into a navy sky. She'd been up for hours, since four. Sleep had inched away from her these past years as the pain increased, shooting up along the left side of her body. 

Don't you love this character already? And the line about time moving away from her!
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 randomly selected teaser from page 57:

Her lips were so thin as to be nothing more than an idea for a mouth. 

I love the writing in that line. As a matter of fact, I wish I'd written it.
Looking forward to see what you all are reading to increase my reading stack for the holidays.

NaNoWriMo Arrives in 2 Days

November is National Novel Writing Month.
Who's with me?
Crickets????
The point of National Novel Writing Month is for me to avoid finishing the edits on my other novels.
Oh, wait. That's not the point.
Hundreds of thousands of authors and would-be authors join Nanowrimo in an attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel. Fifty thousand words does  not quite equal a novel, but it's a good chunk of one.
My last novel was about 80,000. The one that will hopefully be published in November is over 100,000 words.
Since my first novel The Summer of France was set in France. And my soon-to-be-published novel, I See London, I See France, is also set partially in France, I decided to focus on a novel that is set right here in Columbus.
Here's the synopsis:
 When was the last time 34-year-old Maeve left her apartment? She can't really remember. Maybe six weeks earlier for a haircut. She works from home, has a treadmill in the corner of her Columbus apartment, and Amazon plus Green Bean delivery bring everything she needs to her door. 
But this wasn't how it was supposed to turn out. Maeve sets out to turn her life around with Feng Shui and a search for her childhood friends who knew the real her.

Nanowrimo has this weird thing where it asks the author to give a synopsis of the novel and an excerpt plus a book cover. How is all of this possible for people who haven't begun their novels yet? Luckily, I'm about 25,000 words into  my novel. If I write 50,000 words in November, I'll have 75,000 word and I'll be close to a finished novel. 

I wasted some more time not editing my novel and creating a mock book cover:

Don't worry. I'm not quitting my day job to do book covers.

And, here's an excerpt from my 25,000 already written words.

Pausing at the window, Maeve realized how glorious the leaves looked from her second story view and suddenly, she wanted to get out there to experience it. She hadn’t felt that way… well, she couldn’t remember when she’d felt that way. Before Joe had broken up with her? Before she’d met Joe? Enthusiasm seemed to have drained from her life sometime between childhood and this 34^th year she found herself in. “This must be the enthusiasm gap the politicians are always talking about,” Maeve thought to herself then smiled.
Had it been during her college years that she became blasé about everything? She had hung out with a lot of hipsters whose main goal had been to try new things only to dismiss them. Maybe she’d embraced that philosophy too much. She’d taken it to the point where she really did stop feeling joy at the taste of chocolate melting on her tongue or a fresh breeze blowing against her cheeks.
“Today is the first day… Wait. I’m not ready to go there,” Maeve said aloud to her bedroom.

NaNoWriMo asks authors to choose their genre. I definitely consider this novel Women's Fiction, but I don't have that choice on NaNoWriMo. I could choose Chick Lit, which of course is dismissed out of hand by many people, or I could choose Mainstream Fiction. I chose Mainstream Fiction.
So, starting Friday, I'm off to see how many words I can add to my novel.
I'll keep you updated on my journey.
I'd love it if any other authors would friend me on Nanowrimo so we can cheer each other on. You'll find me at Paulita Kincer.

World War II Saga Plus Giveaway

I love to hear from authors who want me to read their books. I suppose someday I might get tired of it, but not when I receive a book like The Gods of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein.
Truthfully, from the title and the description, it's not a book I might have picked up, but I'm so glad I did.
From the very beginning, the writing is beautiful. Ahh, so this is a well-written literary novel, I thought. Not one that tries to impress people with its words, but one that lets the story slowly unfurl as the reader connects to each character.
The author is obviously someone who loves Japan as much as I love France. The details about Japanese homes, culture, and customs are definitely intriguing.
The novel begins, both in New York and Tokyo in 1935, introducing us to characters who are not yet affected by the coming war. The saga continues through the midst of the war, focusing on attempted attacks and the devastation in Japan. Most of us probably know the results of the atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I was unaware that Tokyo was firebombed and largely destroyed along with thousands of residents killed.
But that isn't what this book is about either. It's about the people and how they survive and whether love can grow in spite of evil deeds.
I can't possibly explain why I loved this book, so let me share a couple of passages. Anton, an architect who lived in Japan for more than a decade was asked to help the U.S. government figure out how to best bomb Tokyo. He built a Japanese village using authentic materials. When he couldn't get the floor mats the Japanese used, the U.S. government supplied them from an unknown source.

Anton had tried not to think about the mats'"lenders" as he inspected each of the units individually. Like the ghosts of his flaming oboji, though, they came to him anyway, their former lives whispered from the scars and nicks etched into the rough weave: dents from a low table, laden with food or books. Nail varnish from a careless pedicure. A sickle-moon scuff mark, the approximate shape of a toddler's sandaled heel. They haunted him, these small marks left by lives upended. But as Anton repeatedly reminded himself, he had taken the job. He had to agree to the rules.  

What details. What a way to delve into this character's ghosts as he helped fight war against a people and architecture he loved.
 Here's a passage from a lunch betweem Anton and Hana, another main character who is a glamorous Japanese woman raised in Great Britain.

"I can't eat when I'm nervous."
"Nervous?"
She exhaled a lazy plume of smoke, studying him as though trying to decide something. Finally, she said: "Certain people -- certain men -- have that effect on me."
At first Anton wasn't sure he'd heard correctly: she'd said it in the same way she might casually bring up a food allergy. When he did register her meaning there was a moment of disorientation. She's not well, he thought, as he had two weeks earlier. It occurred to him that it might be a good time to reemphasize the fact of his marriage.

In spite of loving the writing in this book, something happened, a plot twist in the third chapter, that almost made me put it down. Even now that I'm finished, I see so many possible ways the plot could have been changed so that readers wouldn't have that jarring, book dropping occasion. And that occurrence does taint my view of the novel. I'm very intolerant of violence and cruelty. Still, the rest of the war atrocities throughout the book didn't affect me as deeply as this one event, which I'm not revealing because it would be a spoiler.

I would probably give this book 4.5 out of 5 stars. I hope you'll give it a try.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Interview with Jennifer Cody Epstein

Visiting today is author Jennifer Cody Epstein, who wrote The Gods of Heavenly Punishment, a truly lovely novel. You can see my review of her novel here. Hope you enjoy her insights.

Here's a picture of the author that I stole from her website.
Hope she doesn't mind.

Q. How would you sum up The Gods of Heavenly Punishment for those who haven’t read it yet?

 Tough to do in a few words, as I've been learning! But essentially, it's an exploration of a key (but often overlooked) moment of the Pacific War: the firebombing of Tokyo, which killed 100,000 civilians in a few hours. I approach the subject from both sides of the conflict as well as from both the years leading up to it and those in its wake. It's also a meditation on war in general--what we lose, but also what we gain in the aftermath of enormous tragedy. 

Q. What idea or event inspired you to write your novel? 

 I've always been fascinated by Japan, and by America's evolving relationship with it. I lived there for five years, and while I'd heard much from my grandmother about how hated and feared the Japanese were during the war (like most in her generation she was pretty thoroughly propagandized, I think, and was alternately fascinated and slightly shocked by my decision to study there as a student) I could never comprehend how our two nations had descended to such levels of deep, mutual hatred--and then emerged from the war's wake as such strong allies. Then my husband came across a mention of the firebombing in an interview he was conducting (he's a filmmaker and has been making a documentary about a war crime in Iraq), and he came back and asked me what I knew about it...which, I realized abruptly, was pretty much nothing. So I looked it up online--and was flabbergasted that an event of such enormous human cost and complex ethics seems to have been left out of the story of World War II for most of us. I wanted to fill in that gap for myself--and (hopefully) for readers. 

Q. As an author, how much research is required for a book like this? Do you research from home or does it include travel?

I researched a lot--which for me isn't as onerous as it might sound because I actually find researching much easier than writing (!) Most of it was through books (both fiction and nonfiction) written reports, online documents and images etc--but I also travelled back to Japan in  2009 and interviewed three extraordinary women who had lived through the firebombing and very much wanted their stories about it to be passed along to the next generation. 

Q. Which character do you relate most to in The Gods of Heavenly Punishment? Do you share traits with any of the characters?

 I think I'm a combination between Yoshi and her mother Hana. I share Yoshi's fascination with language and her sort of introverted, meditative view of the world--but also I relate to her mother's fear of rejection and her perpetual sense of not fitting in--as well as her alternating tendencies to both embrace her (perceived) eccentricities and suffer because of them.  

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

 I've always loved to write, and I've always loved books. When I was very small one of my favorite pastimes was to staple together sheaths of paper to make "noves" that I'd then fill with pictures and stories, and as I got older I was almost always deep into a real novel no matter what I was supposed to be doing (I used to hide them on my lap when I was theoretically doing my homework, and prop them on the piano when I was supposed to be practicing!). I think in part it's that passion that helped me finally become a "real" writer--it was pretty much all I ever really wanted to do. That said, I also think that community was essential for my development as a writer. Working on my own, I started dozens of projects but really only ever finished a few short stories between the ages of 18 and 28. It was only when I went to graduate school, and found myself surrounded by fellow writers who would not only motivate me to keep going but would challenge me to do it better that I wrote anything worth finishing--not to mention worth publishing! That experience taught me how crucial feedback and support is to the writing process--and as a result, I've continued to work with writing groups since graduating. 

Q. What authors or books influenced you? 

 So many! But I'd say for this book in particular Sarah Waters' The Night Watch and Ian McEwan's Atonement were particularly important--both for the way they handled war's devastation and the skill with which they intertwine very different perspectives into a single narrative. 

Q. Are you working on a new project now that we can look forward to?

 I have started several and am only now deciding which one to go ahead on--but I think it will be another look at World War II, this time from the European angle. But it will also be an exploration of female friendship--how it shapes us, and also how it can both fail and redeem us. I'll keep you posted! 

Hmm, I wonder if Jennifer has read my novel with its take on a moment in World War II. Maybe, like me, she realizes how quickly people who remember those wars are fading from our lives.

Thanks to Jennifer for your interview and for sharing  your novel. 

Dreaming of France -- Paris by Edward Rutherfurd

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.
Maybe we can all satisfy our yearnings for France, until we get there again.
I really enjoyed this novel Paris by Edward Rutherfurd. I'm not one to read straight history. I need a hook, and Rutherfurd gave me one. He entwined the stories of several families throughout the history of Paris to share major events of the city and the country of France. Some might even imagine the book a soap opera in the tradition of Dallas or Dynasty. The main focus of the book began in 1875 and continued through the 1960s. But other chapters jumped back further in history to 1261 then 1307.
I'm hoping that Rutherfurd did his research because I'm taking his word for it. I learned a lot, like why Jewish families became bankers or money lenders, since the Bible said Christians shouldn't lend money. I could picture Paris from its early incarnation with the city wall that slowly expanded. I saw the kinds of fears my Huguenot relatives must have faced living in France, wondering if they would be rounded up and forced to become Catholic or killed. I loved envisioning the construction of Sacre Coeur high up on the hills of Montmartre and even more the engineering marvel that was the Eiffel Tower. I pictured the optimistic French soldiers marching off to war during World War I in their bright blue and red uniforms before they realized that their plans for war were antiquated and they were out-gunned. The same thing happened again in World War II as if the leaders never learned from their mistakes. Throughout history, the human drama of the families kept me interested.
The book is long, 805 pages. But it's an entertaining ride.
Here's a passage of dialogue from the 1500s discussing the wedding of Catherine de Medicis daughter to Henry King of Navarre, who will become king of France.

"You have heard of the great Machiavelli, I am sure."
"Who has not? An evil man."
"He merely described the ruthless cunning, the cold calculation, the poisonings and murders that he saw all around him among the rulers of Italy -- the Florence of the Medicis in particular. our queen mother will act exactly like that."
"And so this wedding...?"
"Is a diabolical trap. Think of it. Coligny is here. Almost every leading Protestant in France has come into Paris for this wedding, along with their followers. What a chance."
"I don't understand."
"She's going to kill them all. She and the Guises."
"But there are hundreds of them."
"Thousands. It's most convenient."

Some parts of the book obviously were sad to read, but the families Rutherfurd created have hope each generation.
Rutherfurd also has an inside joke with a wink at the movie Midnight in Paris. During a scene with Hemingway and his wife Hadley, they encouraged a young American writer to stay in Paris longer.

"Don't go disappearing on us, like Gil," said Hadley.
"Who's Gil?" asked Claire.
"Oh, he was a nice young American that we all thought had promise," said Hadley. "And then suddenly he wasn't there anymore. Disappeared without a word."

 I'm not sure if Rutherfurd was correcting the record, since Hemingway's wife didn't appear in the movie and according to The New York Times, Hemingway was married and living with his wife in Paris in 1922.

If you love Paris and a good soap opera and want to learn some history, this novel is an interesting read.
This also fulfills one of my books for the France reading challenge at Words and Peace.
Thanks for joining in this week. I can't wait to see what you are sharing.

Seduction by M.J. Rose and a Giveaway

 When I first began the novel Seduction by M.J. Rose, I was confused. It started with a journal written by Victor Hugo in Jersey, Channel Islands in 1855 and recalled how he had learned of his daughter's drowning death 12 years before. The next section jumped to Upstate Connecticut present day and a character named Jac L'Etoile who had been dealing with "hallucinations" of past life regressions since she was a teenager. Jac, short for Jacinthe, the French word for hyacinthe, worked as a producer of a reality TV show that debunked myths in cultures around the world.

Author M.J. Rose

I couldn't begin to see how these stories related, and I feared that I wouldn't care about the hashish smoking and seances of Hugo. But I became enthralled as these stories crossed at more than one juncture. Rose carefully wove the stories together, relying on facts about Hugo where she could and tying his experiences to the characters in some of his writing, including the characters in Les Miserables. The author also included an even older story of ancient Druids and their traditions, which worked with Jac's career and her past-life regressions. About halfway into the book, I needed to find out what happened and I raced through to get the answers.
My favorite parts about this book have to be the emphasis on scents. Jac comes from a family of parfumiers, but different smells send her into hallucinations about previous lives. Here's a section from 69% on my Kindle:

But there was something else Jac smelled. A rich and spicy perfume that combined roses, ylang-ylang and oak moss. Trapped in the pages for how many years, a fine French perfume was escaping. It was the kind of scent she had grown up with. Nothing like most modern mass-produced fragrances, but beautifully articulated and rounded. She sniffed at it. There was one note that she couldn't quite figure out, and that note was similar to the mysterious note in Ash's cologne. no, not similar, it was the same note. It was that curious amber she'd found in Fantine's studio. 

The emphasis on fragrance definitely made me more aware of scents around me and I wished I had the skill at separating and divining each one like Jac did.
One drawbacks of the story is the initial puzzlement waiting for the stories to come together, but once they intertwine, they are fascinating.
Once all the stories were interwoven and came to an end, I definitely felt that the overriding message came through: Embrace life -- the one you are living now.
The characters were flawed but likable and they all had solid supporting characters so it didn't seem like they would have to face their fears alone.
I recommend this book as a deliciously unfurling, then fast-paced novel of suspense.
Leave a comment and information about how to reach you at the end of this post, and you'll be entered to win a copy of a manuscript page with M.J. Rose's signature. The winner of the page will be entered into another drawing to win the necklace pictured above and on the cover of Seduction.

Here's a synopsis of the novel Seduction as provided by the publisher:

A gothic tale about Victor Hugo's long-buried secrets
and the lengths we go to for love...
In 1843, novelist Victor Hugo's beloved nineteen-year-old daughter drowned. Ten years later, still grieving, Hugo initiated hundreds of séances from his home on the Isle of Jersey in order to reestablish contact with her. In the process, he claimed to have communed with Plato, Galileo, Shakespeare, Dante, Jesus—and even the Devil himself. Hugo's transcriptions of these conversations have all been published.
Or so it has been believed...
Recovering from a great loss, mythologist Jac L'Etoile thinks that throwing herself into work will distract her from her grief. In the hopes of uncovering a secret about the island's mysterious Celtic roots, she arrives on the Isle of Jersey and is greeted by ghostly Neolithic monuments, medieval castles, and hidden caves.
But the man who's invited her there, a troubled soul named Theo Gaspard, hopes she'll help him discover something quite different—transcripts of Hugo's lost conversations with someone he called the Shadow of the Sepulcher. Central to his heritage, these are the papers his grandfather died trying to find.

But what neither Jac or Theo anticipate is that the mystery surrounding Victor Hugo will threaten their sanity and put their very lives at stake.

Seduction is a historically evocative and atmospheric tale of suspense with a spellbinding ghost story at its heart, written by one of America's most gifted and imaginative novelists. Awakening a mystery that spans centuries, this multi-layered gothic brings a time, a place, and a cast of desperate characters brilliantly to life.
Hardcover, 384 pages
Expected publication: May 7th 2013 by Atria Books
ISBN1451621507 (ISBN13: 9781451621501)

Thanks for visiting and remember to leave a comment and your  email if you want to be included in the giveaway. 

My Novel Free on Kindle Friday and Saturday

It seems weird to give away a book that I've spent hours writing and revising and now marketing, but that's just what is happening today and tomorrow. My novel, The Summer of France, is free on Kindle.
I have to honestly say that I don't understand how it works, but somehow, giving away my novel increases my chances of being seen by buyers after the giveaway is over.
I did an ebook giveaway in February and the number of sales have doubled in March. So here I am again, offering my book for free. I'd love to get a double double in April (That's basketball talk in honor of March madness.)
If you don't have a Kindle, which I don't, other options abound. You can go to the link and there's a place to click on "Get your kindle here free" and what that means is the Kindle reader is free to download to  your computer. So you might have to download the Kindle reader before downloading my book.
I have a Kindle reader on my iPhone and download books there.
If you haven't read my book, I hope you'll take this free chance to try it and then tell me what you think.
Even if you don't plan to read it, I'd appreciate it if you'd download it anyway just to help my numbers.
Here's the link to The Summer of France -- free Friday and Saturday.
Update: Thanks for your support everyone. How can I convey my excitement as I tell you this?
Squeeeee!!!
In the category of France, I'm #1 in the UK and #2 in the US. In the category of Family Life, my novel is #10.
So exciting to see my book move up the list.
Another update: Okay, now I'm #1 in the UK and the US in the category of France and #6 in the category of Family Life.
Double squeeee. Here's the screenshot to prove it. Click on it if you need the print bigger!

First Paragraph, Teaser Tuesday -- Family Pictures

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 so many good books I'm trying to get to. This week, I'm starting Family Pictures by Jane Green. I've read nearly everything by her and I'm rarely disappointed. Hope this one is just as good. Here's the intro:

Back then, when life seemed so simple, before she knew what life was capable of throwing at her, Sylvie was a natural worrier. Anxiety followed her around like a small, dank cloud, convincing her that something terrible was just about to happen. As a child, she worried about her mother's rages, which didn't stop them coming. As a young woman, she worried about making enough money as a textile designer, which meant she had to supplement her career by painting houses. As a young mother, she worried Eve would roll onto her front and never wake up, and when Jonathan was late home from work, she worried something had happened to him.

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 7:

After years of knowing exactly where she stood, Sylvie finds that insecurity has pushed its way in the door. Who is she supposed to be if not a mother? 

 This sounds good to me. What do you think?

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.

Book Trailer

Please take a minute to view my book trailer -- it's like a movie trailer, but about my novel The Summer of France instead.
Well, it makes me want to read it again. I hope it convinces everyone else. If you enjoy it, will you like it on youtube?

Review -- Farewell, Dorothy Parker

Truthfully, I haven't read a lot of Dorothy Parker. I've only read her pithy quotes, but who wouldn't fall in love with those?
"If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you."
or
"This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it."
or
"You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think."
Her words are like fine chocolates that shouldn't be gorged on, but instead tasted and savored individually or they could lead to a stomachache.
Author Ellen Meister, in her new book Farewell, Dorothy Parker, brings Parker to life as a mentor from death to her timid character Violet Epps. Violet is a movie critic with big opinions who can't seem to speak up for herself in her own life.
At the beginning, I didn't like Violet very much. She stood in front of a maitre'd and was overlooked without a peep. That bugged me. She didn't have the gumption to break up with her mooching boyfriend. In fact, not very much about Violet was likeable. Luckily, she was immediately plunged into interacting with Dorothy Parker. Violet meets Parker when she's asked to sign the Algonquin Hotel guestbook. Somehow, she ends up taking the guestbook home only to learn that Parker's ghost is attached to it. That's how Dorothy Parker ends up in Violet's house on long-term loan, ready to give advice and prod Violet into having a backbone.
I would have to say the first part of this novel dragged a bit, but then it captured me and I finished it in one afternoon.
Meister, of course, had to channel Dorothy Parker in order to portray her wit, and I think she did quite well. Here's a passage in the book that made me chuckle. Violet is showing the ghost Dorothy Parker how computers work and allowing her to write an email. The Parker character speaks first:
"In my day, cc stood for carbon copy."
"Now it stands for nothing."
"Like your politicians..."

When Violet learns that she can carry the guestbook around allowing the ghost of Dorothy Parker to travel with her, the two of them encounter a neighbor going for a run and Parker asks if Candy, the neighbor, knows of a nearby smokeshop:
Candy blinked. "Smoke shop?" she said again. 
Mrs. Parker shrugged. "Vile habit. I used to say, 'I'll quit when I die,' but it turns out even that was harder than I thought."
Meister imagines a Parker who would banter about her current state -- dead.

An entire novel can't be built around a few clever phrases though, and Meister didn't rely on the presence of Parker alone. Her character was in a situation where if she didn't grow a backbone, she was going to lose things she loved, like her job and the care of her niece. So Parker's appearance was fortuitous in helping the character change her life.
And, in turn, Violet helped Parker face things that she might be avoiding after death, the idea of crossing over to be with loved ones. The novel deals with Parker's painful childhood and whether her mother, who died before she turned five, would love her in the afterlife. Meister could have stayed on the surface and dealt only with the wisecracking Parker, but she dug into some of the true emotions that the larger-than-life woman might have dealt with.
This is definitely a book worth picking up.
I received an ARC from Putnam to review the book and the quotes may change in the final version. The free book didn't slant my review. The book will be available in February and can currently be pre-ordered on Amazon.
I enjoyed this novel and was a little bereft at the end when I had to close the book on the characters.

Words and Peace Book Review of My Book

Emma at Words and Peace reviewed my book, and she liked it. She's from France, so it made me a little nervous for her to read it.
Would she think I was fair to the French?
Worse, would she think I stereotyped them?
Would she hate the spattering of Franglish I used?
Go take a look and leave a comment so I don't feel so all alone.
It makes me feel like a real author every time.

Dreaming of France -- Chocolat

Here's a new weekly France meme. Please join in. 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

Maybe we can all satisfy our yearnings for France, until we get there again.
Last week my 20-year-old daughter was home from college for the week. I realized that she was missing some vital information from her education. She had never seen the movie Chocolat.

 It has been a long time since I'd seen the movie and even longer since I've read the book. What I remembered about the movie was a woman and her daughter move to a French village and start a chocolate shop. I also remember Johnny Depp was especially luscious. This was still true, but I noticed so much more.
The movie opened on an empty-looking French village with gray stone buildings and cobblestone streets. People poured into a cold stone church while a woman and her little girl in red capes and hoods arrived in town along with a brisk wind. They brought change with them.

What caught my attention this time was the chocolate as it was poured from a pitcher into a cup, or as it was stirred in a big pot, or as the actors bit into each piece of chocolate. The chocolate seemed like the star of the movie -- decadent and sensual.  Juliette Binoche plays the main character Vianne. Throughout the movie, in the direst of situations, her skin looks like porcelain and she wears scooop-necked blouses that show her ivory décolletage. Her face glows with pink on the apples of her cheeks. Vianne seemed so much more alive than anyone else in the movie.
And maybe because I'm older, or mabye because Johnny Depp has received so much more exposure, he didn't wow me this time in Chocolat.
I'm reading one of the sequels to Chocolat right now, Peaches for Father Francis, and  I'm curious about the differences between the book Chocolat and the movie. I may need to read it again.
If you haven't seen the movie or read the book, give them a try.

My Book is Now Available

That sounds kind of low-key, doesn't it?
Oh, anyone interested in buying my book?
Maybe if I used all caps: MY NOVEL, THE SUMMER OF FRANCE, CAN NOW BE PURCHASED.
I am so excited.
Here's me when the first copy came in the mail:

 

The Fed Ex guy didn't even get to the door. I met him on the front porch.

Lots of you know that I've been working on this novel, revising, refining. But for anyone who doesn't, here's the blurb:

 

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

And where can you snatch up a copy of my book?

The paperback will be available on Amazon, but it isn't there yet. Right now, you can find it here. And if you type in the Code PLUMA by Oct. 5, you can get a 20 percent discount.

 

You can find it in ebook form for only $4.99 on Amazon for the Kindle here and on Barnes and Noble for the Nook here.

I'm so happy about my novel, that I can almost forget about my impending nose surgery tomorrow. But I'll fill you in on that later. Let me bask in the glory for a few more hours.

 



Book Review -- In the Bag

I was going to save this book for First Paragraph Tuesday, but it's such a quick read that I'm afraid I'll be finished with it today. So I wanted to tell you about In the Bag by Kate Klise.
Truthfully, this has been on my shelf for awhile. The cover says "A tale of two suitcases, three cities, four people and one big mix-up."
I thought it sounded cute. But it didn't compell me to choose it from among all the other books. Yesterday I did and I learned something about the book that would have made me start it much sooner -- it's set in Paris. Hellooooo. That definitely would have hooked me.
Here's the premise: a mother who's a famous chef in Chicago travels to Paris with her teenage daughter to avoid prom weekend at home, since the girl doesn't have a date.
A father, who organizes art exhibits, travels from St. Louis with his teenage son to Madrid. The father is working so he takes the son along to enjoy the atmosphere. They're all on the same plane from St. Louis to Paris and the teenagers accidentally end up with each other's bags.
The teenagers start emailing each other trying to return bags and end up in an online romance.
Each character gets to tell his/her tale. We see the mom and the dad worrying about their teenagers (something I'm familiar with). We see how clueless the parents are from the kids' perspective.
The kids come up with such a stupid plan to meet each other, that it seems genuine. No offense to any teenagers out there, but the more I get to know them, the more I realize many teenage ideas are ridiculous.
And, added to the fun, the dad had accidentally spilled wine on a woman on the plane. Guess who that is? And he can't stop thinking about her.
This is a fun read if you get a chance to pick it up.
I just wish there'd been a little more emphasis on the setting to get me and all the other Francophiles to pick it up.

First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser -- The Red Garden

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 planning to start The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman. Here's the first paragraph.

The town of Blackwell, Massachusetts, changed its name in 1786. It had been called Bearsville when it was founded in 1750, but it quickly became apparent that a name such as that did little to encourage new settlers. True, there were nearly as many black bears in the woods then as there were pine trees, but there were also more eel in the river than there were ferns sprouting on the banks. You could stick your hand into the murky green shallows and catch half a dozen of the creatures without using bait. If you ventured in waist-high, you'd be surrounded in moments. Yet no one considered calling the village Eelsville, even though people ate eel pie on a regular basis and many of the men in town wore eelskin belts and boots. They said wearing eel made them lucky at cards, but when it came to the rest of life, love for instance, or business acumen, they had no luck at all.

 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 53:

It shocked her to see him disappear beneath the ice. Mary made a gasping noise even though she wasn't the one who'd gone under. She felt that her heart had stopped.

I've liked Alice Hoffman before, so I'm sure I'll give this a try. What are you reading?