Laura Florand's Blog, page 24
May 3, 2014
A Little Fortune for All!
We stopped by Bonnie’s (my favorite local chocolatier, Miel Bon Bons) to give her some lilies of the valley for good fortune for the first of May, and look!! By delightful serendipity, she had been making good fortune symbols, too! So she gave us three.
I kind of feel it’s enough good fortune just knowing such a sweet person who would wish good fortune on us, don’t you?
Here’s hoping this good fortune can spread around to all of you!
May 2, 2014
Friday Book Club: Tanya (I hope)…What about you?
Friday Book Club is a little late tonight! My own reading wishes are probably hopeless this weekend, with so many deadlines, but what I would *like* to be reading is Rebecca Rogers Maher ‘s TANYA, which just released this week and which I’ve been hearing great things about. (She wrote The Bridge, if you tried that one.)
This past week I was also reading Scents and Subversion, too.
What about you? What have you been reading this week? Anything you recommend? Anything you’re looking forward to?
Happy weekend! 
May 1, 2014
Happy May Day!
Happy May Day! It’s one of my favorite days of the year in Paris, the streets filled with that sweet, lemony scent of lilies-of-the-valley or muguets. (Interestingly, in my perfume studies, I have learned that it has been impossible so far to in any way capture that scent, to the extent that the word almost seems to have morphed in meaning within the perfumery world, so that what is accepted as “lily of the valley” doesn’t even remotely resemble the real thing. There’s one special moment in the spring when you can smell that real scent and that is it.) People give each other stems of it because they “porte bonheur”, promise happiness and good fortune. It is a lovely day and tradition and also when my husband and I first went out together, so we have a lot of good memories tied into it. When we bought our first house, this tiny house in which we still live because we are so attached to the neighborhood, the first spring we discovered lilies-of-the-valley coming up all around the house, literally encircling it, and we always thought that was a very special, wonderful sign.
This is one time I infinitely prefer the real flower over chocolate, but the chocolate renditions that some Paris chocolatiers have started doing are so cute, I had to share this one from Patrick Roger. To wish you all happiness and good fortune today and forever after!
You can see a few more chocolate muguets on my Pinterest board, if you like them. Including some macarons au muguet from Pierre Hermé!
Here’s a little excerpt from THE CHOCOLATE TOUCH, where the first of May was a special day, too. It’s Dom’s point of view:
Even he could be perfect on the first of May, with Jaime beside him. It was a soft day, balmy and gentle, with clouds that hinted at rain but never quite delivered. The fresh lemon scent of lilies-of-the-valley was everywhere, as vendors wandered the streets or stationed themselves at prominent corners with buckets full of them, culled from the woods outside of Paris. Florists sold more formally acquired bunches of the muguets, in pots or bouquets, the little white bells dangling sweetly everywhere they looked.
Dom had bought Jaime several bouquets already, after surviving having his heart broken into tiny pieces by the bouquet that she had snuck into the bathroom while he was showering. No one ever, in his whole life, had given him a little bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley on May 1 to wish him fortune and happiness.
“Ça porte bonheur, oui?” she had asked shyly.
And it did bring happiness. Oh, it did.
It was amazing how much sweeter the muguets on every street corner smelled when someone had given some to you, too. It made his whole heart feel lighter, soaring almost like that Victoire de Samothrace, to have her beside him, wishing him happiness
***
Happy May Day to you all!
April 25, 2014
Friday Book Club: I’m reading about perfume. What about you?
Friday Book Club! What are you reading this week? I’ve just finished A SCENTED PALACE: The Secret History of Marie Antoinette’s Perfumer, by Elisabeth de Feydeau, which was really fascinating. And I’ve just started Luca Turin’s THE SECRET OF SCENT, and I’m already enjoying the descriptions of Nice and his discovery of the joys of perfume.
What about you? Anything you’ve read this week that you recommend? Anything you’re looking forward to this weekend?
April 22, 2014
Kind Words about Snow-Kissed, thank you!
Such a lovely, lovely review of SNOW-KISSED from The Bookish Babes that I had to share. Andrea says: “If anyone should ask me why Laura Florand is one of my very, very favorite authors, I won’t need to say a word. I will let Snow-Kissed speak for me. It is undoubtedly one of the very best, most moving stories I’ve had the privilege to read.”
She also reviews in the same post two phenomenal novellas, The Story Guy by Mary Ann Rivers and The Bridge by Rebecca Rogers Maher. I highly recommend these novellas myself and am always honored to see SNOW-KISSED grouped with them.
Check here if you want to see the full reviews.
Thank you so much, Bookish Babes!
April 18, 2014
Friday Book Club: What are you reading?
Friday Book Club! What are you reading this week? Anything you recommend? Anything you’re looking forward to? I have been reading “The English Civil War: A People’s History” by Diane Purkiss, which is quite fascinating. No fiction this week, except my own, as I am editing a lot this week.
What about you?
(By the way, for those of you looking for book recs, often there’s a lot more discussion on my FB page, so feel free to hop over there if you want to see more.)
April 15, 2014
Giveaway! GEEK WITH THE CAT TATTOO
It seems like a good day to do another of those DABWAHA giveaways! Cheer everybody up. Just like or comment below to enter! (Or on my blog.)
Today we’re doing Theresa Weir, Author of New Adult Romance ‘s THE GEEK WITH THE CAT TATTOO, an ebook, because there is *nothing* more likely to cheer you up than reading the cat’s point of view in this thing. (This is Sam the Cat’s story.) I know, you’re saying, “Umm…a romance from a cat’s point of view?” Trust me!! It is too charming.
Actually, I started the series (ahem! supposed to be a third book, Theresa! Just saying!) with THE GIRL WITH THE CAT TATTOO, and was totally hooked on Max’s point of view. And I do think it’s fun to start at the beginning of a series, and either of these books would be a delight, so let’s make this giveaway one or the other.
Like my DABWAHA campaign poster about that elusive third book? 
If you’ve read THE GIRL WITH THE CAT TATTOO and want GEEK, we’ll go with that, and if you haven’t tried it and want to start with GIRL, well, winner’s choice.
Theresa and I had a *fun* time together during the DABWAHA. Cats ended up wearing tinfoil hats, all kinds of things happened. We tried to start a Twitter movement of people posting photos of their cats in tinfoil hats, but for some strange reason, that just didn’t catch on. Hmm…wonder why?
You can see some of my crazy vote drives here, if you missed them during the actual madness. I wish I could find one again where Theresa sent a photo of “Sam” with the “You call that sexy” line, because it was hilarious.
Comment below or on my Facebook to be entered into the drawing for an ebook copy!
April 12, 2014
Cover Reveal: SUN-KISSED!
I’m so excited to share the cover for my next novel, SUN-KISSED! This is the sequel to SNOW-KISSED that I announced in March. (Although I promise it will not win Tearjerker of the Year. I think of this one as a comforting, sexy, sometimes funny, often emotional but in a good way, story about finding sunlight and love when you think, maybe, you never will.) It is one of my shorter novels–about 10% longer than Sparks’ The Notebook, to give you an idea of length. (Most of my books are about twice as long as that, except of course for my novellas. Sun-Kissed is about two-thirds again longer than Snow-Kissed, to give you another comparison.)
Because this is Mack Corey’s story, set during Jaime and Dom’s wedding where we see a lot of the characters from the series again, I’m calling this one part of the Amour et Chocolat series (#7), but just to be warned that there is not really any food-making in it. It is also, obviously, the sequel to Snow-Kissed, and the story of Kai Winters’ mother-in-law, Anne Winters. (Perhaps I should call these two “The Snow Queen Duology”?)
It will be released end of May. I’m aiming for May 20, 2014, but I encourage everyone to sign up here to be emailed of the new release. (It also gets you automatically entered into the monthly Chocolate Club, which is a lot of fun! And for right now, there’s a bonus scene for subscribers of Dom from The Chocolate Touch facing off with the aunts from The Chocolate Kiss.)
What do you think of the cover? The heroine is a little blonder, to tell the truth, but I just loved the message of this image.
COVER COPY
They called her the Ice Queen.
Anne Winters. Self-made billionaire. Household name. Divorced single mom. Convicted felon. She didn’t let anyone or anything get to her. No one was allowed to breach the walls around her heart except for her own son. She had only one trusted friend: her vacation house neighbor. They’d been walking the beach together for twenty years. Not that this gave him access to her heart, of course…
They called him a man who got what he wanted.
Mack Corey. Self-made billionaire. Dominant world player. Widowed father of the bride. No felony convictions yet, although his daughters had come close. He’d transformed his family company into one of the top 500 by the age of thirty. He’d raised two daughters who dumped him for idiot arrogant French chocolatiers and went off to live in Paris. Hell, he even managed to tolerate his dad. But that Ice Queen act Anne Winters had going was really starting to get to him…
They’d been friends for twenty years. Could they become lovers?
Could a frozen heart be kissed by the sun?
Coming late May! Sign up here to be emailed upon its release.
April 11, 2014
Friday Book Club: What are you reading?
FRIDAY BOOK CLUB! (We’ve still got a couple more DABWAHA book giveaways coming up, but I wanted to take a little break today to just talk about what you’re reading. The WINNER of Sarah Morgan’s RIPPED has been announced: Laura V!)
I am reading Peacham’s THE COMPLEAT GENTLEMAN (a guide to being the complete gentleman that was originally published in 1622 and reissued in 1661, as Restoration Cavaliers put a great deal of stock in it).
And other than that, I am re-reading one of my own upcoming books, which is something I do over and over, before release. (SUN-KISSED).
It’s prime gardening weather here, right now, which also means prime lie in the hammock reading weather, of course! Choices, choices.
What have you been reading? Anything you recommend? Anything you’re looking forward to this weekend?
April 8, 2014
Giveaway: Sarah Morgan’s Ripped
Ready for our next Toast to DABWAHA Class Giveaway?
As I’ve said in the previous ones, I had so much fun in the DABWAHA, meeting up with other authors, being silly, discovering other books, and I also just really appreciated all the wonderful support given to my own books. So I wanted to find a way to honor that, both the other authors and all you readers who were voting and supporting. Thus this series of giveaways of the different books THE CHOCOLATE TOUCH and/or SNOW-KISSED went up against.
This one is of RIPPED by Sarah Morgan. This was such a funny, sexy, charming novella! Hayley’s point of view (it’s in first person) was just hilarious. It’s the first time I’ve seen Sarah do a first person story (although I may have missed something), and I have to say, I usually am not a huge fan of first person, but she did this so very well.
Also, turkeys get waxed. I’m just saying. You want to know why, don’t you?
Like or comment, here or on my Facebook, to enter! Random will select a winner, oh, probably Thursday morning.
Bonus: Here are my little campaign posters during the DABWAHA round between RIPPED and SNOW-KISSED. Somehow, my campaign posters never work.
