Laura Florand's Blog, page 7

Je suis Paris

A colleague and friend sent this to me. As many have noted, going out for a drink with friends has quickly turned into an affirmation of French values this weekend in Paris, and this is exactly right.

The translation is:

I am on a (café or restaurant) terrace

*

And having a beer

*

While listening to music

With friends

*

Who are not the same color as me

*

Nor the same religion as me

***

And we remake the world.

[Refaire le monde, remaking the world, is one of those specifically French expressions that is used to describe when a group of friends/family stay up all night over the table, drinking more wine and talking about everything, which often includes politics etc. You “remake the world”.]

***

I am Paris.

Paris

I do not have much that I can say about Paris right now. It’s too difficult, and so much of what is being said online too glib, facile posturing. I hate it. It rakes me raw.

But there are many kind people who have reached out, with empathy, to ask how we are doing and if all our family and friends are okay. And I think that most of these people have big enough hearts that they sincerely hope that I will say, Yes, we’re all fine. Everyone is fine.

In which case, the short, easy answer is that none of our family and friends are hurt, physically. And given how fortunate we are to be able to say that, that is both a great huge expansion of the heart in relief…and a tight, painful fist for those who can’t say the same.

But the longer answer is a little more complicated.

The 10th arrondissement is where my husband was born. It was where he returned to live at nineteen, as soon as he got his own apartment. His sister works there now. I first lived in the 14th, but moved in with him in his tiny apartment in the 10th later. That first year of being in love? That’s this part of Paris for us.

We love those streets. We love them deeply–the richness and life of this part of Paris, the diversity, the energy. We love the Canal St. Martin, and the Friday evenings when the terraces and theaters are full and groups hang out in front of nightclubs. This is the heart of Paris. The real Paris. The humanity of Paris, what makes this city so full of life. Terrorists could not have struck more closely into the heart of Paris even if they brought the Louvre down.

Terrorists are consciously attacking every value France holds most dear. First liberty of expression, now fraternity.

So I am very sorry, but the longer answer is that no one is okay. Our own closest people are alive and unwounded. That is wonderful.

But no one is okay.

No one in France is okay.

My mother-in-law posted this photo on her Facebook. I think this sums it up.

And this video, I think, covers all the rest I have to say.

Thank you, to those who have expressed their pain and concern for the people of Paris.

Library Journal Names Once Upon a Rose to Top 10 Best Books of 2015!

So incredibly thrilled and touched that ONCE UPON A ROSE should be named to Top Ten Best Books of 2015 by Library Journal.

What an incredible honor to be included among these authors! So many wonderful women whose work I have been reading and loving for years, some of them since I was a teenager: Jayne Ann Krentz, Mary Balogh, Mary Jo Putney, Tessa Dare, Christina Dodd, Author Brenda Novak, Robin D. Owens, Julie Anne Long, Kerrigan Byrne.

Congratulations to all of them, and I am honored that ONCE UPON A ROSE should be included in their company.

Congratulations!

Congrats to Anne P., the winner of the 2 Chicks chocolates and Thea Harrison ‘s Storm’s Heart! This week here it is the perfect weather to curl up with good chocolate and a book–drizzly and cold, and of course, with daylight savings time, dark early.

(In fact, Monday, coming home from campus in the dark and rain, I thought to myself: Shouldn’t this be Friday evening? Because it really feels as if it should, and I should be curling up for the weekend.)

Happy fall reading weather to all of you!

Happy Halloween! Don’t get cursed by a witch!

Happy Halloween from La Maison des Sorcières!

***

Photos are from a book club that had invited me last October (or maybe the October before last?) for The Chocolate Kiss and which I just loved. When I spotted them this morning, I couldn’t resist the trip back to a wonderful “Halloween” evening!

I hope you all have a fun-filled day! And don’t get cursed by a witch, like poor Philippe.

Special Flash Giveaway! Chocolate and a Book!

SPECIAL FLASH GIVEAWAY TODAY! Are you all going to be candied out this weekend, or interested in some of the good stuff?

When I was at RWA this July, one of my editors very kindly brought me a little box of chocolates from one of her own favorite local chocolatiers 2 Chicks with Chocolate. These were so yummy and beautifully made that I wanted to pass on the goodness to you all, via a 12-piece box from these wonderful chocolatiers.

And since this editor, Luann Reed-Siegel, was recommended to me by the lovely Thea Harrison and since she copy edited some of Thea’s Elder Races books, I wanted to include an ebook copy of one of those as well. Luann edited STORM’S HEART which is book 2 in the series and among my favorites, so I thought that would be a good one to include.

Chocolates don’t ship internationally, but if you are an international reader, you’re still eligible for the book.

If you’re signed up for my email for new releases you’re automatically entered once in the drawing, and just comment below or on Facebook to enter again. Let me know how or why these chocolates and book would make you happy! (Because that makes me happy!)

Here is what 2 Chicks’ chocolates look like. (Yes, yes, I did end up ordering a second box for me before the giveaway. What?? I had to make sure to taste all the flavors to make sure it was up to your standards!)

And for those of you who are writers and looking for a wonderful copy and developmental editor, check out Luann’s website here.

We’ll draw a name Friday.

Good luck! Happy reading and happy chocolate!

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

A short story, or perhaps bonus scene would be a better description, that I wrote for those of you who loved Damien and Jasmine in A Wish Upon Jasmine and would like to see more of them and their first encounter.

Note that as an author, I really intend this as an extra, to be read after A Wish Upon Jasmine for those of you who want just a little more. (In fact, I’m kind of biting my nails about whether I should make it available at all.) There are good narrative reasons that their first meeting is a memory in the book and not the starting scene. BUT…obviously you are a free citizen. And this story is freely available for all of you to enjoy!

As it is a copyrighted work, though, I do ask that you not cut and paste from here to other sites, but rather just use the link to refer people back. Thanks, and I hope you enjoy this little extra glimpse of Damien and Jasmine!

Want to be sure to receive any extra short stories? Want to be the first to know when Tristan’s book is released? Sign up here to be emailed when there are new releases.

A WISH UPON JASMINE
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BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

She sprayed the wish of a scent at the door in retreat, slipping away from the noisy crowd of the gorgeous and glamorous. Cold had kept the terrace empty, and Jess nestled close to one of the patio heaters, looking down at the lights of New York. The wind kept blowing the heater’s warmth away, a harsh reminder of the world that waited for her the second she abandoned this party.

Stupid party. She didn’t know why she’d ever talked herself into believing her friends. Just get out more. Go! Try to meet someone!

Yeah, right. At a perfume launch party? What an idiot she was. She didn’t work that way, in gloss and glitter. She needed quiet. She needed time.

And she was all out of time.

I’m going to be so alone.

Jess closed her eyes. Weight sank from her shoulders to her forearms, heavy against the railing. She looked up, craning her neck for any sign of a star, and slipped her hand into her purse, bringing out the wishing scent she had made that day.

Her thumb rubbed the crystal bottle rhythmically as she brought it to her nose. Bitter almonds for Christmas, the scent of every happy family; vanilla like a mother somewhere baking cookies; jasmine for her father, the star-shaped flower he loved so much he had named her for it. She rubbed the bottle wistfully but couldn’t spot a real star to make a wish on.

Of course not. Whatever star had shone at her birth had turned into a black hole two years ago and was now sucking the last bit of light out of her world. She thrust the bottle back into her pocket.

Idiot.

A man moved into the open glass doors. She braced. Yet another gorgeous guy. In fact, he had to be one of the handsomest men she had ever seen—black-haired, a hard beauty to his face, perfection carved out of stone. Tall and lean and oh-so-elegant, he stopped short at the sight of her already out on the terrace.

Yeah, she made quite a contrast with the glamorous party, didn’t she? In her flowing romantic dress, with her amateur-hour make-up and her soft brown hair that was probably starting to frizz. Probably not at all the kind of person he’d like to find himself forced to talk to. She looked away, her muscles tensing from her fists to her shoulders. She wanted to go home. And do what? Sink my head into my hands in despair?

The man moved toward her, and her nerves jolted. Surely he wasn’t going to come make conversation? Nobody normal could talk to a guy that handsome without stuttering. She would sound like an idiot.

But she angled her head just enough to watch his approach out of the corner of her eye, that long, elegant way he moved, like a panther out for a stroll and not sure yet if he was ready for a snack.

Danger prickled through her.

So much more interesting than despair.

“Good evening,” he said, and the formal phrase and the crisp, brushed blend of French and British in his accent burred over her skin.

She nodded and looked out over the city, tangled in self-consciousness now. He was really hot. Even in this party full of top models, he stood out. He had more real to him, as if his hotness didn’t come from fixing on sex appeal as a goal but from a deeper core of who and how he was.

He leaned his forearms on the railing next to hers, maybe a little too close, but the French had a hard time adjusting to an American’s sense of space.

She focused on trying to make her breathing sound natural.

“It’s a beautiful night,” he said after a moment, and she flicked a quick glance at him to find him watching her subtly, his head just barely turned toward her. Her eyes met his, gray or maybe green, the light made it hard to tell. They searched hers quickly, his eyebrows drawn faintly together, not in a frown, but in some kind of perplexity.

“Yes.” She was terrible at making conversation. Poor guy. She searched and dismissed choices. How cold it was. For God’s sake, not the weather, that’s pathetic. That the lights looked like someone had massacred a whole field of stars and dumped them in the streets below. No! Definitely don’t say that.

“Not too cold?” he said, and the weather sounded completely different in his voice. Not dumb conversation at all. Courteous, quiet—a man using easy subjects to make conversation easy.

A panther calmly settling in to wait until its prey forgot to be wary and came grazing too close.

What? Where did she get that idea?

“Well…this side is warm.” She indicated the heater next to which she stood.

His gaze traveled down her bare arm on his side, the far side from the heater. The hairs there shivered at his gaze, but she could blame that on the cold. He touched his tux jacket, with an inquiring look.

She flushed all through her. His jacket would fall over her shoulders and envelope her in warmth. In his scent. In his courtesy.

In…care.

Her eyes stung suddenly. She looked away. “I’m okay.”

He nodded but hesitated one more second, visibly uncomfortable with leaving her cold while he still wore a coat. But he must have realized how over-intimate the gesture would be, because he dropped his arm back to the railing and gazed at the city lights.

She liked him for that automatic instinct to keep her warm, even if she had to turn it down. Damn, he was hot. She couldn’t get her flush to die out. In fact, it kept insisting on spreading toward her erogenous zones.

He tilted his head toward the sky, which winter clouds and the brightness of the city left a dull yellow-gray color. “It’s funny how humans do that. Steal all the stars from the sky.”

“It’s pretty,” she offered lamely, gesturing at the jewel-spread of lights below.

“Yes. But a sky full of stars is beautiful, too.”

“Can you see the stars where you live?”

He nodded. “But not as many as you can see in some places. The desert. I was in Morocco once…” He fell silent and just shook his head, unable to find words enough for those stars.

She could see them, like little visions of light beyond his head. “I was driving through Texas once at three a.m.,” she said shyly. “And we stopped in some rest area or something in the middle of nowhere, just pulled off the road and got out of the car. The stars were so bright and so low, it was like you could pick them and eat them for breakfast.”

That made him turn onto one elbow, his body opening to her as he studied her. A little smile softened that fine, sensual mouth. “What did they taste like?”

Her own mouth relaxed. “You can’t really taste them,” she said regretfully.

“Did you try?” A warmth in his eyes, as if he liked her.

Yes. Her rueful smile broke out. She’d stretched up as high as she could. She’d opened her mouth to see if the light would tingle on her tongue.

His own smile deepened, warm like something she could move closer to, against this chill. “I’m Damien.” He pronounced it in French, Dah-myen, but then repeated it with an American pronunciation, a man who had long since given up on getting his name pronounced right here. “Damien.”

“Jess.” No point giving her full name and risking that ironic, ah Spoiled Brat look, if he was in the know about perfumers. Which odds were high he might be, given his presence at a perfume launch party.

He might even know enough to associate her with Amour et Artisan, and she really didn’t want to answer polite questions about the start-up artisan perfume company tonight. Tara Lee, their founding force and major stockholder, had been acting very weird the past few days. Smiling and elusive. It left a chill of unease in Jess that she tried to ignore. If she lost Amour et Artisan, too, she would…

But no. Nothing was wrong there. She was over-sensitive to everything these days, imagining her whole world ending when really it was just…the heart of her world ending.

And anyone would think that two years would have been plenty of time to prepare for that.

A cold breeze blew past her toward Damien, and he tilted his head, taking a breath. “It’s your scent.” His eyes trailed over the hollow of her throat as if he wanted to dip his face there to take a deep breath and make sure. “That scent I—” He broke off.

The flush of him, his attention, this intimacy, filled her everywhere, until it was all she could do not to squirm with it.

“You smell like happiness.” A curious, searching expression in his eyes, as if he was feeling his way through darkness toward a light that might be a will o’ the wisp. His deep voice was so quiet that it seemed to just barely graze over her skin.

She rubbed her arms, completely overset by him. When she’d forced herself to come to this party instead of curling up in her apartment with a book or a show or sorrow, her mental carrot had been a vision of some geeky, slightly shy man, who would “get” her, a man she could talk to.

Another perfumer, maybe, seeking refuge from the party with a like-minded soul. Sure, he’d be athletic and cute, why not? Hard to lure oneself out to a party with a fantasy of someone who wasn’t. But he wouldn’t be drop-dead gorgeous, moving through this world as if it was butter he’d been born to cut through.

This guy looked like James Bond or something. And she was way out of Bond girl league.

“Are you happy?” Damien asked, with that deep easy voice, like a great panther paw that had been velveted to make her feel safer near the claws.

Usually she lied, rather than render conversation awkward with a no. But she was on a terrace high above a sparkling world. “I’m looking for happiness.” Right here. Looking for stars.

Those fine, controlled lips eased. “Me, too,” he said quietly and turned away from the overdose of intimacy before they both could flee it, leaning both arms on the railing again and gazing at the city.

So she could study his profile without falling headfirst into his eyes. Elegant, strong bones, a scar on his chin that gave him a soupçon of reality, black eyebrows, expensively cut black hair that the breeze ruffled gently. Everything about him looked expensive—the way the suit fit him, the watch on his wrist. Powerful.

Her stomach clutched again at the sense of danger. Like she should be armed and ready for battle, and she wasn’t. She was just…her.

“What makes you happy?” he asked, voice so low and courteous. As if he was struggling, with everything in him, to keep knives sheathed, claws in, in order to offer a hand into which she would feel safe sliding hers.

What did make her happy? Funny, she actually knew that, these days. Once upon a time, she would have said something big, like working with her perfumes. But now she had to grasp at every bit of happiness she could find, every day, to keep afloat, and so she knew down to the very last detail where her chances of happiness came from.

“It’s always the little things. A scent from a bakery. The first bite into a ripe peach. A little girl holding her mother’s hand on the street, in some cute outfit. Stars.” Things that were completely removed from that bittersweet imminent-loss happiness of her father having a good day.

Damien nodded, smiling a little, his gaze flicking over her discreetly without him really turning his head.

“What about you?”

He searched the lights below for a long moment before he finally gave a little shrug of those broad shoulders, his lips surprisingly vulnerable, even puzzled. “This.”

She didn’t know what to think of that. But oddly it made the danger of him feel…safe. The flush in her didn’t die down exactly, but its existence stopped feeling so awkward and ridiculous.

He was happy just standing here talking to her?

That made her feel astonishingly happy, too.

She leaned again on her own forearms, and maybe in the movement, she might have shifted an inch closer to him.

“And the other things you said.” That big, masculine hand reached over and, very gently, an almost-not-touch, he drew his finger the length of her middle finger and over the back of her hand before he brought his arm back to the rail, leaving a shivering in her body, like a vibration that wouldn’t stop. “I think those make me happy, too.”

They did? Jess, don’t be an idiot. Probably everyone in the world likes those things. Yet pleasure insisted on flooding her.

“And the jasmine harvest. The rose harvest. The wind on the sea, and this sense of endlessness you can get in old churches and villages, as if footsteps have sounded on those cobblestones for time out of mind.”

She liked him very much, she realized, startled. How could you like someone that handsome, who exuded so much wealth and power?

“My father came from France,” she said. “And I’ve spent some time in Paris, for conferences and training. But I would love to know it better.”

“I can see you there,” he said very softly, his voice puzzled and even cautious, like he was picking his way around a great mystery. He turned his head and studied her openly.

Warmth brushed through her again, delicate and gone, like a whisper of scent lost in a crowd.

“It’s very peaceful here.” His voice picked over the word peaceful, like it was a sleeping child he was afraid to wake up. “Magic. Is that why you came out?”

She nodded. The party had made her feel like a goose girl who had accidentally slipped into a royal ball. Everything around her fake and glitzy and loud and not for her. And this terrace had been the nearest escape.

“Would you like me to leave you in peace?”

“No,” she said quickly, and then flushed again. “I mean—don’t leave on my account. You’re not bothering me.” Her tongue tangled, and her hopes tangled, eager and clumsy, and she knotted her fingers.

A light of pleasure and—relief?—in his eyes. Something about his body relaxed, and something about his eyes grew more intent, honing in. Again, danger pricked her.

“I like your dress,” he said.

He couldn’t possibly. She’d loved this flowing, romantic dress at home, when she was looking at herself in the mirror. A dress for a girl whose dreams could still come true, a girl who could still be a princess and find true love and happiness. All she had to do was go to a party.

But once she got to the party, she’d realized why it helped to know a stylish fairy godmother. No one wore romantic flowing dresses here. They wore sheaths that fit to thin bodies, and their hair and make-up made her feel like a motherless ten-year-old sneaking eye shadow on in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror, and then scrubbing it off in disappointment and frustration.

“But as pretty as it is, it doesn’t look warm enough at all.” Damien stripped off his tux jacket.

She stared up at him as he slipped it around her shoulders and tugged the lapels together across her chest. His eyes held hers as the warmth from his body settled over her. Down through her shoulders, over her bare arms, wrapping around her back. The warmth of his eyes sank through her, too, and heated her from the inside.

“There,” he said softly. “That’s better.”

“You’ll be cold.”

He shrugged. Stripped of that black armor, his torso seemed even sexier in just a white shirt, one big step closer to nakedness. He kept hold of the lapels of his coat, his thumbs caressing them as he gazed down at her. “I’m not cold. Not right now.”

The words themselves kindled heat. Was he hitting on her? Like, not just that automatic, gallant French flirting but…seriously? He really wanted something to happen?

Out of all those sexy models and actresses in the room just beyond those terrace doors? Those women were the kind a man like him dated. What in the world?

One hand drew gently down her arm through the draping tux, until he could slip past the panel and find her hand. He lifted her wrist to his face and took a breath of it, his nose brushing the sensitive skin. His eyes closed a moment. “Exactly like happiness,” he murmured. “Did you make this?”

The pulses shooting up through her arm and right toward her heart were golden, skittery lights, chasing each other under her skin. “I’m a perfumer.” She said it with a certain defiance. Despite their essential role, perfumers were usually second class citizens at a perfume launch party, as if the below stairs crowd had had the bad manners to stop using the servants’ stair.

Unless you were someone like Tristan Rosier, coming from his über-powerful perfume family, gorgeous and flirtatious and with a gift for getting everyone to think you were a star.

An image of Tristan Rosier flitted through her mind just long enough to start to stir a thought, but before it could form, Damien said, with a certain sardonic darkness: “I’m a moneyman.”

Of course he was. “I knew you couldn’t be a model.” And realizing that could come across wrong: “I mean you’re handsome enough, but I couldn’t imagine you letting anyone else have that much power over you.”

Then she flushed hot, as she realized what she’d just said.

A smile creased his cheeks, a leap of heat in his eyes. He turned his head and kissed the inside of her wrist. “Thank you.”

Oh. Oh. He might have just short-circuited her heart.

No one had ever, ever kissed the inside of her wrist before. Not ever. And to have the first time be by a tall, dark, handsome stranger with a French-on-British accent just about destroyed her. Maybe she’d accidentally fallen asleep and was having that dream again.

“I don’t, in fact, usually like letting someone have power over me.” He rubbed the inside of her wrist with a tiny motion of his thumb, its calluses only an inch or so away from the silk brush of his lips. “What about you?”

“I’m a perfumer.” Sensation kept shooting up her arm, through her heart, and out to the rest of her body. “The whole industry has power over me.”

“You’re its heart,” he said, and kissed her wrist again, a fraction higher, right over her pulse.

Her mind dispersed, wisps of it dissolving into the wind, like some volatile scent when the bottle was unstoppered. She lost all solidity when his mouth touched her wrist. She became only whisper and hope.

A faint, hungry, satisfied curl of his lips, a panther who now had its next meal firmly in its teeth. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a heart.”

Copyright Laura Florand, 2015.

The only person you can control

“Peu importe ce que les autres font ou ne font pas. Toi, tu dois faire ce que tu peux pour améliorer la situation dans laquelle tu te trouves. Tu es la seule personne que tu puisses contrôler sur ce terrain.”

(It doesn’t matter what anyone else does or doesn’t do. You have to do your best to improve the situation you have. You are the only person you can control on this field.)

–Advice from Sébastien to our daughter, post soccer game discussion

But I thought it was pretty good advice for all of us.

***

P.S. It is so weird to realize that WE are now the ones giving out the sage paternal and maternal advice to the next generation. I’m pretty sure we’re not ready for this.

On getting it all done

This bit of gratuitous life wisdom just from the different discussions that have come into my life this week, from different spaces of worry. So here it is:

You will never, ever, ever get it ALL done. Not ever. Never.

So. You just have to take a deep breath and let that go. Go for a walk and keep your head up while you do, looking around. Bake cookies. Garden. Swing in the hammock with your kid. Whatever you love that you’re NOT doing while you try to do it ALL…go do that thing instead.

It’s okay.

Trust me–unless you’re in an episode of 24, it’s okay to let some things go.

Alas, if you’re Jack Bauer or, say, the President, I’m afraid you’re excluded from this advice. For the rest of us, let’s be grateful we aren’t, and carry on.

Or not carry on for a little bit. That’s okay, too.

Special Flash Giveaway! EH Chocolatier and Audra North’s In the Fast Lane

SPECIAL FLASH GIVEAWAY TODAY! If you remember my photos from RWA, you may remember that some people were so kind as to share with me chocolates from their own local favorite chocolatier. I love this so much, both the kindness of the gesture and the chance to explore different chocolatiers, often ones that I’ve never heard of. The growth of wonderful artisan chocolate in the U.S. has been followed with great delight by yours truly these past five years.

Anyway, now that the weather is a little cooler and it’s safer to ship chocolates, I wanted to pass on the pleasure a bit.

So today I wanted to do a giveaway of a box of 12 chocolates from EHChocolatier, in the Boston area (Somerville, to be exact). The winner is also welcome to choose their caramels instead or 6 of each if you prefer. I ordered some of the caramels this week and loved them–perfect almost-liquid consistency with wonderful flavors.

This giveaway is in honor of the wonderful Audra North, who was the one who so kindly introduced me to this chocolatier with a box at RWA.

So included with the chocolates, I want to offer a copy of IN THE FAST LANE, the first book in her Hard Driving Series, which features a RACE CAR DRIVER heroine. See how I put that in caps? I love this, and while I’m by no means an expert in racing, the world seems to me to be very well captured. (And the next book in the series, we have a race car mechanic heroine! So fun.)

I’ll draw a name Friday from email subscribers and those who comment below or on Facebook. (So yes, you could be in it twice if you’re on both.)

For comments, let me know: How would winning a box of these chocolates make you happy?