France et Moi with author Karen Burns

Welcome to ‘France et Moi’ where this week I am talking to author Karen Burns about what France means to her.

Karen Burns

Karen Burns is the author of the Amazon best-seller The Paris Effect (recently optioned for film and TV by Papazian-Hirsch Entertainment), its standalone sequel Paris Ever After, and The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl: Real-life Career Advice You Can Actually Use. Burns has lived and worked in four countries and 22 cities, including Paris. No longer a wanderer, she now resides in the Pacific Northwest, where in addition to novels she writes a weekly career advice column for The Seattle Times. She can be found online here.

1. I think France is a special place and it is famed for many things including its cheese, wine and diverse holiday locations plus, dare I say its strikes and dog poo littered streets. What do you think makes France so very unique and ‘French’?

Karen: To me what is the most special is that the French seem have a gift for enjoying the moment. When you buy a bunch of flowers, they will be beautifully wrapped before being handed to you. Waiters in cafés and restaurants never hurry you through a meal so they can “turn the table.” When you meet friends for a walk or cup of tea, you always get the feeling that they have all the time in the world, that there is nothing else they’d rather be doing than be with you. I’m sure there are exceptions. But that sense that this moment is special, and should be savored, is one of the enormous pleasures of spending time in France.

  

2. What is your first memory of a trip to France?

Karen: On my first trip to Europe we had to change trains in Paris to go on to St. Malo (intending to return to Paris a few days later). When we arrived I had no idea that this involved getting ourselves from one train station to another. I didn’t even know Paris had more than one train station! We had to figure everything out in a very short amount of time, in the middle of the night, with our very elementary French. It was a challenge, and so much fun.

3. Where did your love of Paris come from?

Karen: That’s a good question. Like my character, Amy, I just always “knew” that one day I had to go to Paris. It seemed like a necessary thing. Her memory of dancing to the song “I Love Paris” as a little girl (this is in The Paris Effect) is actually a memory of my own.

 

Paris Ever After

4. Your character Amy in The Paris Effect and Paris Ever After had some issues with food, do you think the French have a different attitude to food than Americans and if so, is it a healthier one?

Karen: It can be dangerous to generalize but I think that when it comes to food the French tend to prize quality over quantity, while Americans too often do the opposite. In my opinion, the French attitude is the healthier one! My mother (who was not French) always said it’s better to have a little of something really good than a lot of something that’s just so-so. I think she was right.

5. Imagine you are sitting outside a French café at 10.00am on a sunny morning watching the world go by, what do you order from the waiter?

Karen: Well, that’s easy. I would order a café crème. When my husband and I stay in Paris we generally have tea and croissants at “home” for breakfast. Then we check our email and read the newspaper. By around ten or eleven when we finally leave the apartment, the first thing we do is sit down for a coffee! We are very lazy in Paris.

6. What is your favourite thing to buy in a Boulangerie/Patisserie?

Karen: Last time we were there we were introduced to the brioche feuilletée. It was lovely and between the two of us we could eat the whole thing (because, while enormous, it was mostly air). But, honestly, I prefer a plain croissant, or a hunk of baguette spread with butter and confiture.

 

Karen in France

7. France has many different cheeses, a silly question, but which French cheese are you?

Karen: Hmm. How about a morbier? There’s that mysterious thin line of ash running through the center. You can’t see it from the outside. But when you cut it open there it is, waiting for you, ready to tell you a story!

8. Is there anything French you won’t eat?

Karen: For a year or so I taught English one week a month on a French military base. We spent all day with our students, including meals (it was an immersion course). One time lunch was tripes. As the bowl came around the table and I got a whiff of it, I thought, Oh no. The odor was truly awful to me. Keep in mind this was “military-grade” tripes, and in general the food on the base was not great. I was saved when one of my students, noticing the look of horror on my face, leapt up to get me something else from the kitchen. So gallant!

9. What do you think makes French women different to the rest of us and gives them that je ne sais quoi?

Karen: I think perhaps it’s that they don’t try so hard to be beautiful, and the result is that they’re more beautiful. Again, this is a generalization. But they seem to wear less make-up, and simpler outfits, and more natural hairstyles than many North American women do and this forms a large part of their appeal.

10. How does France inspire your writing?

Karen: When I lived in France something surprised me every day. (Mind you, it wasn’t always a good surprise.) But in general I like novelty, and I like to put unexpected things in my writing. To me the whole point of going elsewhere is to get away from sameness, from everything being the way you assume it to be. That’s also a good reason for reading, and writing, novels!

Finally, Paris Ever After is available now, but do you have plans for any more books set in France?

Karen: Well, I have a few ideas. Nothing is concrete yet and I haven’t started actually writing (unless you count notes). It’s in that delicate incubation stage.

Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions about France and you.

Karen: I really enjoyed it, Jacqui. Your blog is one of the very best!

You can read my review of Paris Ever After here and find links to Amazon for both of Karen’s novels set in Paris below.

You can follow Karen on Facebook, Twitter and at her website.

Book review of The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse

The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse

My review today is for the new release from Kate Mosse, The Burning Chambers, that is now available in hardback, ebook and audiobook formats.

Synopsis provided by the author

The Burning Chambers is the first in a sequence of historical novels set against the backdrop of the French Wars of Religion in the 16th and 17th centuries. A Romeo & Juliet story, it tells the story of a Catholic girl, Minou, her Huguenot lover, Piet, and a feud between two families stretching over three hundred years. Betrayal and intrigue, a missing will and a stolen relic, it is a diaspora story and the action ranges from Languedoc and Paris in the 16th century, to London and Amsterdam in the 17th and 18th centuries, and finally to the New World and the Cape in the 19th. The series begins and ends in the small town of Franschhoek in 1862, where several Huguenot families had fled persecution to begin a new life, discover that old sins have long shadows. I’m having a wonderful time researching and writing the novels, so I hope readers will take Minou and Piet to their hearts.

My review

I have to start my review by saying that Kate is a brilliant storyteller and although her books may look rather daunting as they are so big, don’t be afraid. I found that once I’d slipped inside the pages, time stood still, the magic of her storytelling took hold and I loved the fact we followed seemingly unrelated stories of different characters in different places, and then bit by bit the relationships and links between them all became apparent. A Kate Mosse book is a very satisfying experience and this one was no exception.

I become quite attached to Minou and Piet and the struggles they faced in a difficult time. They were from different sides of an unnecessary war, but both were honest, strong-willed and judged others on their actions, not beliefs. Following a chance meeting in Carcassonne, they then find themselves in Toulouse, just as tensions between the Catholics and the Huguenots are rising to burning point. It was a time when you no longer knew who could be trusted and as the action took hold I was often on the edge of my seat.

The siege of Toulouse was very moving and in places was difficult to read; the barricades, the bodies, the blood, the people we have come to know slip away, then reappear, and I was always wondering if they would make it to safety. There were times I had to take a deep breath, pull up my big girl pants and keep reading; when half of me wanted to turn and run, the other half was so gripped by the action that I couldn’t have run if I’d tried.

It never fails to amaze and sadden me, the atrocities some are able to do to their fellow men, in the name of religion. The characters in this book feel little was learned from the Cathar murders some three hundred years before the Huguenot troubles in 1562. Some five hundred years later man is still at war with man, in the name of God. We have learned nothing.

Once I’d started The Burning Chambers, I couldn’t put it down and I just know readers are going to love it as much as The Languedoc Trilogy. The scene has been set for part two and I can’t wait for this journey to unfold through the centuries.

If you enjoyed Kate’s previous trilogy, or are an historical fiction fan, I am sure you will love her latest novel.

The Burning Chambers is out now in ebook, hardback and audio book and links to Amazon can be found below.

In case you missed my France et Moi interview with Kate, you can read it here and you can find Kate at her website here and follow her on social media here – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.

Book review of Paris Ever After by Karen Burns

Paris Ever After by KSR Burns

My review today is for new release Paris Ever After by Karen Burns, the sequel to The Paris Effect.

It has been a few years since I read The Paris Effect, where the likable, but rather screwed up Amy takes a life-changing trip to Paris, but I remember clearly that I found certain parts of it, and some of the characters, slightly disturbing. However, it was a real page-turner that kept my mind on full alert, as things aren’t always what they first appear to be. I was delighted to have the chance to return and see where Amy was now.

The Amy we find in Paris Ever After at first appears to be happier, more in control, and with a good reason to see her future with more positivity than I dared hope. Margaret, the friendly face who took Amy under her wing on her first visit to Paris, seems to be even more involved in Amy’s life now, but is showing a fragility that means theirs has become a mutual looking-out-for-each-other relationship. However, it doesn’t take long for events to upset their equilibrium and it is the unexpected visitors who provide the main plot this time.

Amy certainly seems to have a knack of finding herself in somewhat bizarre situations alongside a real mixed (and often mixed up) set of friends. As well as the unexpected guests there are their unusual stories to take in too, and at times it seems uncertain if there is a place for Amy either in Paris or back in Phoenix.

With lots of plot twists that seem to turn her life upside down, Amy eventually finds the focus she desperately needs, which gives her the ability to take control and decide where she will make her future, and who will be alongside her. I certainly felt much happier for Amy at the end of this book than I had at the end of the first. 

If you are looking for something a little bit different, but with engaging characters, a fast moving plot and a good sense of place, this Parisian book could be just the thing for you this summer.

The Paris Effect and Paris Ever After are both available in paperback and ebook format and links to Amazon can be found below.

You can follow Karen on Twitter, Facebook and at her website and I am delighted she will be joining me back here on Friday as part of my France et Moi interview feature.

Book review of My Grape Paris by Laura Bradbury

My Grape Paris, Laura Bradbury

My review today is for My Grape Paris by Laura Bradbury, the fifth memoir of her time spent in France with Franck, her Frenchman. My Grape Paris is released today and for those wanting to read in chronological order, comes in as book two in the series.

Laura and Franck met in Burgundy when she was 17, and on an exchange programme from Canada. You can read all about the beginning of her French adventures in My Grape Year (see my review here).

In this latest memoir, we join the young couple as they return from Montreal (Franck followed Laura back to Canada as soon as he could) to Paris, where Laura is about to embark on a year at the Sorbonne, studying French medieval literature. Before the term begins they need to find somewhere to live, Franck needs to find work, in order to pay the rent, and it soon becomes clear that Laura’s romantic dream of a year in Paris isn’t quite living up to expectations. However, Frenchman Franck is over the moon to be back in his homeland and his relaxed attitude to life and the problems they face begins to make Laura feel uneasy.

As I have come to expect from Laura, this book is written with honesty and shows the good and not so good times she spent as a student in Paris. The administration difficulties, the cultural differences, the ‘interesting’ toilets and certain people who are less than welcoming are all there alongside some of the most amazing Parisian experiences I have ever read about. Laura takes us to places in Paris we would never see without her (and Franck) by our side. Champagne river cruises, hidden amphitheatre’s, libraries, musette dances and insider knowledge on bistros, the Louvre and more, all seen through the eyes of a couple in love, I didn't want it to end. If that isn’t enough to whet your appetite, whether it is a picnic sourced from local market produce in spring, a glass of Kir and aperos in their tiny flat or a meal in a bistro, Laura's descriptions of real French food will make your mouth water and your stomach rumble.

I would love to see an appendix to the book; a map and address list of Laura's Paris and all the secret places she takes us to in the book, it would be a great tour guide to have on my next visit to Paris.

Thanks for sharing your year in Paris in another great memoir Laura. If you have enjoyed Laura's previous memoirs, or love memoirs set in Paris, this book is for you.

All of Laura’s books are available in paperback and ebook format and links to Amazon can be found below.

You can read my reviews of her previous memoirs here:

My Grape Year (book one)

My Grape Wedding (book three) – review coming soon!

My Grape Escape (book four)

My Grape Village (book five)

If you would like to experience a small slice of Laura’s real Burgundian life you can check out their holiday rental website here. You can also find Laura on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and her author website.