Laura Florand's Blog, page 15

Roses in all their forms! :)

I love this! Pakwanstripes, who is reading an ARC of ONCE UPON A ROSE, made this after reading about valleys of roses!

Lovely talent!

The Chocolate Thief goes to Brazil!

Look! It’s the Brazilian cover of THE CHOCOLATE THIEF! (Not sure of release date, actually, but the fact that the cover is showing up means it’s coming soon.) I always have a lot of fun seeing the different choices in title, cover, across countries. (Melhor que chocolate means Better than Chocolate, literally.)

Friday Book Club: Irrationality and Quiet!

Friday Book Club! What are you all reading? I just finished PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL by Dan Ariely and found it really fascinating. Really intriguing experiments on how humans make irrational decisions and what are different things that push them to do so.

Now I’m diving into QUIET by Susan Cain, of which I actually read great chunks a long time ago when I was visiting someone for the holidays and they had a copy, but I decided to go back and read the whole thing.

If you haven’t read it and you’ve ever wondered “what is wrong with you” because you don’t like parties or need lots of solitude and down time, this is a great book for you.

What about you? What are you reading? Anything you recommend? Anything you’re looking forward to?

Best of 2014 for Shadowed Heart from Romance Novels for Feminists

I wanted to take a second to offer a huge thank you to Romance Novels for Feminists for choosing SHADOWED HEART as a Best Book of 2014. I’m very honored by the selection and by the company, which includes Emma Barry, Ruthie Knox (Robin York), Suzanne Brockmann, Meredith Duran, Mary Ann Rivers, Cecilia Grant, Historical Romance Author, and several more authors whose work I hugely admire.

Thank you so much for honoring SHADOWED HEART!

Link to the full list.

Fleurs (2)

Note: This is an old post from 2007, when I first started doing research for the Vie en Roses series. I’m re-posting it now because I’m pretty sure none of my new readership (those who found me with the Chocolate books) have seen it and that you might enjoy a glimpse of this world.

 

All around Grasse in the south of France, the world is full of flowers.

Maybe most of those old fields of flowers have been sold, turned into “concrete fields” as one rose grower said, or villas.

But the people who live there have kept flowers as their identity, what makes them unique and beautiful. They are the place where flowers and perfume once reigned supreme, and that’s a beautiful identity for any place, so they want to keep it.

(A statue in Grasse of a 17th-century perfumer. Imagine buying perfumes from someone in the streets like this! If only we could somehow blend the beauty of their world with one where we have electricity and vaccinations.)

So flowers show up…in violet flavored ice cream.

(The same place had lavender, rose, and orange blossom with pine nuts. More on this glacier later.)

In trous normands at fine restaurants, where the sorbets are flavored with lavender or thyme or rosemary. (Two of which aren’t flowers, but when you’re eating them, close enough.)

(What a delightful experience this restaurant was in every way, the food, the view, the waiter, the chef, the hostess…)

In guimauve, which is old-fashioned, handmade marshmallow. Cut, as Auer sells them:

Or left in strips, as they are in the big jar in this photo.

The flavors were orange blossom, violet, anise, and rose.

In the same photo, we find flowers in syrups and liqueurs and jellies. (In French, jelly or jam is a confiture de fruits, but a confit de rose or jasmin or any flower.)

In fountains.

This one flows with eau de rose.

And that is not all, but I must take a break now and go lay me down in a bed of roses…

 

 

Once Upon a Rose, advanced copies have gone out

ONCE UPON A ROSE advanced review copies have gone out!! If you put your name in the drawing, be sure to check your email and spam (because spam filters love these things). Demand however was *really* high. We increased the advanced copies from 10 to 20 in honor of the demand, but of course there were still a lot more requests than copies.

Thank you SO MUCH for your interest in this new series. I’m very excited about it. To me, there is such a sweetness to this particular couple that I hope they bring sweetness to you, too, and that this will be a beautiful visit to a valley of roses in the south of France and a very fun meeting of this new family, all the Rosiers.

COMING SOON!

Friday Book Club!

Let’s talk about books today! It’s Friday Book Club, and we’ve missed a couple with the holidays. What are you reading?

I’m reading proofs of ONCE UPON A ROSE, to be honest. I’m enjoying that, so that’s a good sign, right? I find this couple so sweet.

Also, our Romance Novel course at Duke has started! And for the first week I have them reading Susan Napier’s IN BED WITH THE BOSS, so I’m re-reading that to prep my class. (The title has already gotten some discussion going in class! It will be fun to see how discussion goes Monday.) Have any of you read it? This must be one of my favorite Harlequin Presents, and I routinely contact any writers I know in New Zealand and beg them to tell me when Susan Napier is going to publish another book. And this is probably the reader favorite of all her books.

Have you ever read category romances like Harlequin Presents? (Do you have favorite authors, if so?)

Next up for me, I have WHEN BOOKS WENT TO WAR waiting for me at the library desk, and I’m hoping I’ll get a chance to start it this weekend, because it sounds really fascinating.

What about you? What are you reading? Anything you recommend? Anything you’re looking forward to?

The darkened Eiffel Tower

Earlier today I learned that one of our colleagues was one of the journalists gravely wounded in the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices. Philippe Lançon, a very well-known journalist for Libération who also collaborated with Charlie Hebdo, spent last year here as a Media Fellow, in our department, and taught two courses for us, as well as gave many talks and was very actively engaged here intellectually, as you might expect of someone of his mind and wit. I didn’t realize he was among the wounded until another colleague emailed the rest of us today. My understanding is that, while seriously wounded, his prognosis is good, but it’s just…hard for me to wrap my mind around this event, as it is for everyone, I think, and to actually know someone who was caught in it makes it that much harder to encompass, while at the same time bringing it closer. The colleague who emailed to let us know is actually teaching a course on freedom of expression in France, inspired in part by some of the work with Lançon, a course that, by bitter coincidence, started yesterday, of all days.

The Eiffel Tower went dark tonight in honor of the victims.

I’m sorry to bring dark things to this site, as you know that is something I prefer to avoid, but of course you know how important Paris and France are to me, and my husband, of course, is Parisian, and these are artists and journalists he “grew up with” (reading their work).

It’s a very grievous thing.

Keep Warm!

I am really dumbfounded that they didn’t delay openings today. They’ve delayed for much warmer temperatures here. (Schoolkids waiting for the bus before dawn without good winter attire, which they might often not have in this area if their family is struggling.)

Of course *we* are only at 10F, plus wind chill. That’s practically toasty warm compared to some of you. How are all of you doing? How are you staying warm? (It probably won’t surprise you to know that our method in this household involves hot chocolate.)

I hope you have a cozy throw and a good book to read! And if you have to go out in it, that you don’t have to stay out in it long.

Charlie Hebdo

I rarely post anything to do with international tragedies here, because I want this to be a safe and happy space, but I just wanted to state my extreme sadness for the courageous artists and journalists of Charlie Hebdo as well as the two policemen who died intervening.

This is a very grievous day.

If you are in Paris, I think people will be gathering at République to manifest for freedom of expression at 18h00.

Rest in peace.