The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris by Evie Woods - Paris in July

After years of nursing her mother through a final illness in Dublin, Edie Lane realizes she needs to challenge herself by doing something different. Searching online, she finds a job as the Assistant Manager of a bakery in Paris, which seems perfect – her parents had honeymooned in Paris and always talked about visiting as a family and her father is a pastry chef. But when Edie reaches La Boulangerie sur la Rue De Compiègne in Paris, she learns her mistake: her new employer is La Boulangerie sur la Rue de Paris in Compiègne, an hour north of Paris!

WWW Wednesday – July 16

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Falling for Provence by Alison Roberts

When Ellie, Laura, and Fiona Gilchrist inherit a house in Provence from an uncle they never knew, Laura organizes a trip to inspect it and brings Ellie along. Ellie is recovering from the tragedy of losing her infant son and her family wants her to try to move on. The little house has been empty for years but artistic Ellie is intrigued by terracotta tiles and the neglected garden; impulsively, she decides to stay behind to get the property into shape so it can be sold.

The Secret Stealers by Jane Healey - Review

In this historical novel set during World War II in the United States, England, and France, a lovely young widow from Boston is determined to show she can contribute meaningfully to war effort, using her language skills and experience living in Paris.

Since Anna’s doctor husband died near Pearl Harbor, she has taught French in Washington, DC and resisted her family’s efforts to get her back to Boston.

Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade by Janet Skeslien Charles

Title: Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade
Author: Janet Skeslien Charles
Publication: Atria Books, hardcover, 2024
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: France

Description: Jessie Carson, a children’s librarian at the New York Public Library (NYPL) in 1918, is flattered when Anne Morgan, daughter of the most powerful financier in America's history, J.P. Morgan, invites and pays her way to France to help with war relief work.

The Night War by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Title: The Night War
Author: Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Maps: Juliet Percival
Publication: Dial Books, hardcover, 2024
Genre: Juvenile Historical Fiction (with a little fantasy)
Setting: 1942 France

Description: Miri and her parents fled Germany for Paris after Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass), when the Nazis accelerated their persecution of German and Austrian Jews in November 1938. They have settled in a Paris neighborhood that welcomed many Jews and have made friends.

The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie #ReadChristie2024

Title: The Mystery of the Blue Train 
Author: Agatha Christie
Publication: Dodd, Mead & Co., hardcover, originally published in 1928
Genre: Mystery
Setting: France and England

Description: An American millionaire, Rufus Van Aldin, has purchased priceless rubies for his only child, Ruthie, which distracts her temporarily from annoyance with her philandering husband. She is heading to France to rendezvous with her first love (dismissed as a fortune hunter by her father years earlier) and takes the famous Blue Train, which brings affluent travelers to the Riviera.

The Glass-Blowers by Daphne du Maurier – for DDM Week

Title: The Glass-Blowers
Author: Daphne du Maurier
Publication: Doubleday & Company, hardcover, 1963
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 18th and 19th century France

Description: In this historical novel, du Maurier tells the imagined story of her actual ancestors, the Busson family, glass-blowers in rural France, and how they were affected by the French Revolution.

France 2021, Day 4 - Vézelay

My mother had suggested we visit Vézelay Abbey, a Benedictine and Cluniac monastery in Vézelay, a remote part of Burgundy. It was built in the 12th century and is now known as the 

Basilica of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine (Mary Magdalene) (if I had time I would explain to you that she was not a prostitute, as many have implied - that is all spiteful legend, probably started by Apostles who didn't want their all-boy fan club disrupted - but I can’t charge my laptop at this hotel so the so-to-speak clock is ticking). I must have done the search for trains or other transportation 50 times (hoping for different results) and I also emailed the tourist office in Vézelay, which politely told me (in French) their village was lovely but difficult to visit without a car. So not helpful! I was tempted a dozen times to tell my mother we just couldn’t squeeze it into our trip but I finally figured out logistics that would be stressful but might just work if some Good Samaritan would call us a taxi or two. I decided the best time to travel to Vézelay was between Paris and Provence because after our cruise we will want to take our Covid tests and leave as speedily as possible, even though it is closer to Lyon where our cruise ends. 

Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell - a fantasy on the roofs of Paris

Title: Rooftoppers
Author: Katherine Rundell
Illustrator: Terry Fan
Publication: Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 2013
Genre: Middle-grade fiction
Setting: Paris

Description: As a baby, Sophie was found floating in a cello case after a shipwreck in the middle of the English Channel.

Band of Sisters: The Women of Smith College Go to War by Lauren Willig

Title: Band of Sisters: The Women of Smith College Go to War
Author: Lauren Willig
Publication: William Morrow, hardcover, 2021
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: World War I France

Description: Based on actual events, this is a novel about a group of Smith College alumnae who traveled to France during the First World War to assist small French villages that had suffered from German destruction.

The Daughter's Tale by Armando Lucas Correa - and Giveaway

Title: The Daughter’s Tale
Author: Armando Lucas Correa
Publication: Atria, hardcover, May 2019 (translated from Spanish)
Genre: Historical Fiction

Plot: Berlin, 1939. Amanda Sternberg and her husband, Julius, dreamed of blissful summers spent by the lake at Wannsee and unlimited opportunities for their children. But that all falls apart when the family bookshop is destroyed and Julius is sent to a concentration camp. Now, desperate to flee Nazi Germany and preserve what’s left of her family, Amanda heads toward the south of France with her two young daughters—only to arrive with one. In Haute-Vienne, their freedom is short-lived, and soon she and her eldest daughter are forced into a labor camp, where Amanda must once again make an impossible sacrifice.

The Tide Watchers (Book Review)

Title: The Tide Watchers
Author: Lisa Chaplin
Publication: William Morrow, trade paperback, June 2015
Genre: Historical Fiction

Plot: Winter 1803: one woman allegedly stands between Napoleon and the fall of Great Britain. Daughter of an English baronet who just happens to be a spymaster, Lisbeth eloped with a young Frenchmen who seemed charming until they were married. When her husband abandons her, she takes a menial job in a tavern as a barmaid, determined to somehow reclaim the infant son he has taken from her.

A seasoned spy known as Tidewatcher, Duncan apprenticed under Lisbeth's father and pledged to keep his mentor's pretty daughter safe—a promise complicated by Napoleon Bonaparte. The British believe he is planning an attack, and Duncan is sent to search for signs of invasion on the French coast—where he draws dangerously close to adventurous and unpredictable Lisbeth.

A sensational new invention may shift the tide of a French victory. A brilliant and eccentric American inventor named Robert Fulton has devised a deadly weapon that can decimate an enemy's fleet. To protect English ships, Tidewatcher must gain control of Fulton's invention and cross enemy lines . . . but he cannot do it alone. Left with no other options, Duncan enlists Lisbeth's help in outwitting the American inventor and uncovering Bonaparte's secret plans – in return, he will help her take her son back to England.

Going undercover for the handsome and duty-bound spy, Lisbeth risks her freedom and her life as she navigates double agents and submarine warfare to outwit the greatest military tactician in history. The only question is . . . . who can she trust?

Purchase Links

Amazon | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble

Audience: Fans of historical fiction, readers who enjoy books by Lauren Willig and Tasha Alexander

What I liked: This is a fast paced adventure combining several elements I enjoy: espionage, complicated family relationships, and women contributing to war efforts. Lisbeth is quick-witted (albeit far too passive) and willing to help defeat Bonaparte although her priority always remains reclaiming her child. Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres, so I found this novel and its unusual setting entertaining. By far the most interesting aspect of the book, however, was finding Robert Fulton in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars – how had I never known that, despite being born in Pennsylvania, by 1797 he was in Paris, an 18th century scientific center, where he began to design torpedoes and submarines.

What I disliked: I did not find the plot very convincing: I didn’t understand why Lisbeth’s husband courted her in the first place and why he lost interest so quickly; why her father and brothers allowed her to suffer with a known villain, far from home. Duncan’s complicated heritage was confusing, and it seemed unlikely someone would marry his chambermaid mother without any blood connection, just to secure an heir to torment. There seemed to be far too many plot elements floating around without proper setup or resolution, although I suppose the author is already planning other books in the series.  A skilled editor would have helped the author with the anachronisms and her lack of familiarity with this century and Revolutionary France.

Please join Lisa Chaplin as she tours the blogosphere with TLC Book Tours. I received this book in return for an honest review.

The Sea Garden (Book Review)

Title: The Sea Garden
Author: Deborah Lawrenson

Publication Information: HarperCollins, hardcover, 2014

Genre: Fiction/Historical Fiction

Plot: This book consists of three interlocking novellas.  In the first story, set in 2013, Ellie Brooke, a landscape architect, has traveled to an island off the French coast to restore a long neglected garden. Her employer is an urbane older Frenchman with an eccentric elderly mother. Ellie’s visit has ominous overtones even before she reaches the decayed home of the de Fayols family, but she experiences the usual gothic intimidation once she arrives: hostility, a host who abandons her, mysterious strangers, her possessions rifled, and she becomes mysteriously dizzy.  Ellie’s narrative ends abruptly.

Pilgrim Footprints on the Sands of Time (Book Review)

Title: Pilgrim Footprints on the Sands of Time
Author: Sylvia Nilsen

Publication Information: LightEye Editions, paperback, December 2013  

Genre: Historical Fiction

Setting: 12th century Europe

Plot:  William Beaumont, a fulling miller’s son, is an ambitious but unsophisticated young man, whose dream is to study medicine at a university.  When he catches sight of Alicia Bearham, niece to the nobility, he falls madly in love.  Surprisingly, Alicia returns his feelings, and even more improbably, her family – far from warning him to keep his distance – invites him to accompany them on a pilgrimage to Spain.  Her family is unfortunately connected to one of the men who murdered Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, and must expiate its guilt (although Henry II, who instigated the crime – “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” - escapes significant punishment) in order to regain its reputation.  William and his companions experience many adventures and dangers in France and Spain before returning to England.

Audience: Fans of Judith Merkle Riley; armchair travelers; those planning or dreaming of a pilgrimage.

My Impressions:  I was attracted to this book by the cover, which has a Pre-Raphaelite look despite its 12th century setting, and the author’s obvious passion for pilgrimages.  I was reminded of a book called Mount Joy by Daisy Newman I read many years ago about a young woman who leaves a college like Radcliffe to go on pilgrimage (until I looked it up on Goodreads moments ago I didn’t recall she also traveled to Santiago de Compostela).  In fact, I was surprised to read that pilgrims still travel to Santiago de Compostela in huge numbers (250,000 in 2010); I had thought there were more obvious destinations such as Rome and the Holy Land.

I did feel strongly the manuscript needed an editor.  The anachronistic language was very jarring and could easily have been avoided (“Hey, Will, are you alright?” “Still fancy her, do you?” “Is this why you’ve been so insecure about us?” and so on.  The concept of a medical “internship” may have existed in the 12th century but not by that name, and at one point I swear the characters went to lunch!).  William was more interesting when passionate about healing than when infatuated with Alicia.  Their rhapsodic utterances to each other were repetitive.

However, Sylvia Nilsen is knowledgeable and enthusiastic about her subject.  She has been the editor for a travel guide publisher and her company, amaWalkersCamino, takes small groups of pilgrims on the Camino Frances pilgrimage route in Spain.  She also walked from Paris to Spain to do the research for this book.  For more information on Sylvia Nilsen, please visit her website.  You can also find her on Facebook.

Source:  I received this book from the HistoricalFiction Virtual Book Tours and urge you to stop by the tour to learn more about the author and see what other bloggers had to say about this book.  

Virtual Book Tour Schedule

Monday, February 24
Review at Flashlight Commentary
Spotlight & Giveaway at Historical Fiction Connection

Tuesday, February 25
Interview at Flashlight Commentary

Thursday, February 27
Spotlight & Giveaway at Kinx’s Book Nook

Friday, February 28
Guest Post at A Bookish Libraria

Monday, March 3
Review at A Chick Who Reads

Guest Post at Mina’s Bookshelf

Tuesday, March 4
Review at Historical Fiction Obsession
Review & Giveaway at Broken Teepee

Wednesday, March 5
Review at Oh, for the Hook of a Book

Thursday, March 6
Interview at Oh, for the Hook of a Book

Friday, March 7
Review at Reading the Ages

Monday, March 10
Review & Guest Post at Just One More Chapter

Tuesday, March 11
Review at The Most Happy Reader

Wednesday, March 12
Spotlight & Giveaway at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time

Thursday, March 13
Review at Svetlana’s Reads and Views

Friday, March 14
Interview at Layered Pages

Monday, March 17
Review at Book Nerd

Tuesday, March 18
Interview & Giveaway at Let Them Read Books

Wednesday, March 19
Guest Post at Kelsey’s Book Corner

Thursday, March 20
Review at From L.A. to LA

Friday, March 21
Spotlight at Passages to the Past

Thanks for stopping by!