Frenchie Friday: My Drool-worthy TBR Pile of France Novels

Posted by on Jun 28, 2013 in Frenchie Fridays | 7 comments

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Midnight Train Amazon CoverI’ve been wading through edits and cranking on my second novel so I haven’t had much time to read, but come end of summer, I’m ALL OVER THESE novels. I thought I’d share my list with fellow Francofiles and just all around France worshippers like myself! There’s a little something for everyone–a romance suspense, a YA novel, a mystery, and a historical.

Are there novels about France or French characters you can’t wait to read? Please share in the comments!

 

MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO PARIS by Juliette Sobanet

When hard-hitting DC reporter Jillian Chambord learns that her twin sister, Isla, has been abducted from a luxury train traveling through the Alps, not even the threat of losing her coveted position at The Washington Daily can stop her from hopping on the next flight to France. Never mind the fact that Samuel Kelly—the sexy former CIA agent who Jillian has sworn off forever—has been assigned as the lead investigator in the case.

When Jillian and Samuel arrive in the Alps, they soon learn that their midnight train isn’t leading them to Isla, but has taken them back in time to 1937, to a night when another young woman was abducted from the same Orient Express train. Given a chance to save both women, Jillian and Samuel are unprepared for what they discover on the train that night, for the sparks that fly between them . . . and for what they’ll have to do to keep each other alive.

IslaHappilyEverAfterSmallMidnight Train to Paris is a magical and suspenseful exploration of just how far we will go to save the ones we love.

 

ISLA AND THE HAPPILY EVER AFTER by Stephanie Perkins

From the glittering streets of Manhattan to the moonlit rooftops of Paris, falling in love is easy for hopeless dreamer Isla and introspective artist Josh. But as they begin their senior year in France, Isla and Josh are quickly forced to confront the heartbreaking reality that happily-ever-afters aren’t always forever.

Their romantic journey is skillfully intertwined with those of beloved couples Anna and Étienne and Lola and Cricket, whose paths are destined to collide in a sweeping finale certain to please fans old and new.

 

 

Bones of ParisTHE BONES OF PARIS by Laurie R. King

Paris, France: September 1929. For Harris Stuyvesant, the assignment is a private investigator’s dream—he’s getting paid to troll the cafés and bars of Montparnasse, looking for a pretty young woman. The American agent has a healthy appreciation for la vie de bohème, despite having worked for years at the U.S. Bureau of Investigation. The missing person in question is Philippa Crosby, a twenty-two year old from Boston who has been living in Paris, modeling and acting. Her family became alarmed when she stopped all communications, and Stuyvesant agreed to track her down. He wholly expects to find her in the arms of some up-and-coming artist, perhaps experimenting with the decadent lifestyle that is suddenly available on every rue and boulevard.

As Stuyvesant follows Philippa’s trail through the expatriate community of artists and writers, he finds that she is known to many of its famous—and infamous—inhabitants, from Shakespeare and Company’s Sylvia Beach to Ernest Hemingway to the Surrealist photographer Man Ray. But when the evidence leads Stuyvesant to the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in Montmartre, his investigation takes a sharp, disturbing turn. At the Grand-Guignol, murder, insanity, and sexual perversion are all staged to shocking, brutal effect: depravity as art, savage human nature on stage.

Soon it becomes clear that one missing girl is a drop in the bucket. Here, amid the glittering lights of the cabarets, hides a monster whose artistic coup de grâce is to be rendered in blood. And Stuyvesant will have to descend into the darkest depths of perversion to find a killer . . . sifting through The Bones of Paris.

 

seductionSEDUCTION by M.J. Rose

A gothic tale about Victor Hugo’s long-buried secrets and the power of a love that never dies . . . In 1843, novelist Victor Hugo’s beloved nineteen-year-old daughter drowned. Ten years later, still grieving, Hugo initiated hundreds of séances from his home on the Isle of Jersey in order to reestablish contact with her. In the process, he claimed to have communed with Plato, Galileo, Shakespeare, Dante, Jesus—and even the devil himself. Hugo’s transcriptions of these conversations have all been published.

Or so it has been believed . . .

Recovering from a great loss, mythologist Jac L’Etoile thinks that throwing herself into work will distract her from her grief. In the hopes of uncovering a secret about the island’s mysterious Celtic roots, she arrives on Jersey and is greeted by ghostly Neolithic monuments, medieval castles and hidden caves. But the man who has invited her there, a troubled soul named Theo Gaspard, hopes she’ll help him discover something quite different— transcripts of Hugo’s lost conversations with someone he called the Shadow of the Sepulcher. Central to his heritage, these are the papers his grandfather died trying to find. Neither Jac nor Theo anticipate that the mystery surrounding Victor Hugo will threaten their sanity and put their very lives at stake.

Seduction is a historically evocative and atmospheric tale of suspense with a spellbinding ghost story at its heart, written by one of America’s most gifted and imaginative novelists. Awakening a mystery that spans centuries, this multilayered gothic tale brings a time, a place and a cast of desperate characters brilliantly to life.

7 Comments

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  1. Emma @ Words And Peace

    great list!
    I have a very long list of French stuff in my goodreads TBR!!
    I have read and loved Seduction, and I’m going to read The Bones of Paris very soon.
    I had not heard about Isla, I’m going to check!
    by the way, if you or your readers are interested in getting books featuring France for free, I run France Book Tours. you get the book you want and you just post a review on a specific day on your own blog.
    we just finished a Tour with Seduction!
    and The Bones of Paris is scheduled for September; as well as another upcoming book by Juliette Sobanet: Dancing With Paris in August.
    see here: http://francebooktours.com

  2. Teresa

    I am so happy to have found your writing, Heather. WOW is all I can say. I love all the books. Thanks so much! Merci mille fois!

  3. Dana Ortegón

    Hi, Heather:
    Got to your website via your post on “voice” from RU.

    “Hunters and Gatherers” by Anna Gavalda is one of the best books about Paris I’ve ever read! I can’t believe it hasn’t been optioned for a movie yet.

    Dana

  4. E.B.Pike

    “The Paris Wife” by Paula McClain. I still haven’t read this! If you happen to be behind the times like me, it is the story of Ernest Hemingway’s time in Paris with his (2nd?) wife Hadley Richardson. Supposed to be an awesome depiction of Paris in the 1920’s.

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