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Patricia Sands

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Words And Peace

Le tour de France and My tour de France

July 2, 2013 by Patricia Sands 22 Comments

Okay, I  know it isn’t Friday, which is the day to celebrate France on my blog but I have a few France-related matters I want to share.

First, in case you didn’t know … but really, how could you not … you DO follow le tour don’t you? Even without Lance … and we won’t go there right now …

The 100th Tour de France began last Saturday and currentlymap_home the riders are passing through my favourite part of France. They were in Nice today and will be heading along the coast, past Antibes and up into the hills near Grasse, heading for Marseilles in this next stage.

FRIDAY UPDATE- My friend, Claire McAlpine, told me about the day the Tour passed through Aix. All the children had the day off school so they would not miss the excitement. I like that!

Today, the ride is from Montpelier to Albi.

Click here to go to the official site for videos and all the information you could possible want on this extraordinary sport. (I’m not mentioning the skin tight cycling outfits … but … if for no other reason …)

And now I want to mention MY tour de France. The fabulous Emma at Words And Peace now organizes excellent FRANCE BOOK TOURS that allow authors to share their work through the fine bloggers she contacts, according to the genre.

promise-of-provence-banner

If you have time, please go to her site or any of the sites below to join in the tour, try for a giveaway, or just say hello to me. The main purpose of these tours is to allow author’s to reach new readership by being featured on different blogs. It’s a wonderful way to get in touch with readers and I want every blogger involved to know how much their involvement and support is appreciated. Book bloggers rock! Merci!

VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR SCHEDULE
Monday, July 1
Giveaway at Vvb32 Reads

Tuesday, July 2
Review + Giveaway at Chocolate & Croissants

Wednesday, July 3
Review + Giveaway at The French Village Diaries
Interview + Giveaway at An Accidental Blog

Thursday, July 4
Review at The Most Happy Reader

Friday, July 5
Interview at The French Village Diaries

Saturday, July 6
Excerpt posted by Helena Fairfax

Sunday, July 7
Review at Walkie Talkie Book Club

Monday, July 8
Review at Vvb32 Reads
Review + Giveaway at Words And Peace

Tuesday, July 9
Review at Faith Hope & Cherrytea
Giveaway at Walkie Talkie Book Club

Wednesday, July 10
Review at Impressions In Ink
Review + Giveaway at Queen Of All She Reads
Review + Giveaway at The Redlady’s Reading Room

***

Patricia will be co-leading an 11-day tour of 14 women
to Nice and the countryside of Provence in June 2014.
Come join in the magic!
http://womenstravelnetwork.ca/promenade-en-provence/

I’m dashing out now to go watch our 5-year-old grandson’s (The Adorable Jack) soccer game! If any of these links aren’t live right now, I will fix them later tonight. First things first, right? 

What are your priorities these days? Is your plate overflowing or do you have everything under control? How do you find the balance?

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Filed Under: Blog, France Tagged With: France, France Book Tours, Le Tour De France, Nice, The Promise of Provence, Words And Peace

Paulita Kincer’s Book Tour …

June 18, 2013 by Patricia Sands Leave a Comment

mailSay bonjour to writer and blogger Paulita Kincer, another woman who shares my love of France.  She has traveled there many times and still finds more to lure her back.

Paulita has an M.A. in journalism from American University and currently teaches college English  in Columbus, Ohio, where she lives with her three teenagers, two cats and one husband.

Her novel, The Summer of France, was recently published and Paulita is traveling about on a blog tour organized by … drum roll please … ta daaaa …

France Book Tours!

mail-2

It’s our good fortune she found time to drop by for a chat. I’ve set out some lightly chilled white wine and rosé along with a selection of delicious temptations from the local patisserie.

France-PSandsPhotos
France-PSandsPhotos

Please help yourself  … don’t be shy, take two … and join us!

P.S. ~ Rosé or Pastis – which do you prefer?
P.K. ~ Pastis is always a fiery surprise which I enjoy on occasion, but I’m mostly a sweet wine drinker, so you’d likely find rosé in my hands before dinner.

P.S. ~ When did your connection to France begin and how often do you return?
P.K. ~ I took French in high school and college and then did a student tour between my junior and senior years of college. But France and I had a rocky start when I desperately needed a bathroom near Notre Dame and found only a Turkish toilet – you know, those toilets that have two places for feet to go and a drain in the bottom. However, I got a second chance with France a few years later when I went over as an au pair for three months. I haven’t lost my love for all things French since then.
With two kids in college, I don’t get a chance to travel to France as often as I’d like, but they will graduate some day, and I’m already planning my next trip. I want to try barging on the canals in Burgundy and another bicycle trip in Provence.

P.S. ~ When did writing first become a serious focus for you?
P.K. ~ I’ve been a serious writer since I can remember. I have dozens of notebooks filled with my childhood writing; During summer vacations, I would take my notebook and a peanut butter sandwich and scour the neighborhood for adventures I could write about. I majored in journalism in college so I could earn a living as a writer, and eventually I started writing novels.

P.S. ~  Are you a plotter or a pantser? What works for you?
P.K. ~ I’m definitely a pantser, which means, I don’t employ any discipline! I start off with an idea and characters and set them on their way. Most of the time they head in directions I don’t even expect. The Summer of France started off as a novel about a bed and breakfast in Mackinac Island, Michigan. What it turned out to be was a novel about family running a bed and breakfast in the south of France and discovering secrets about each other.

P.S. ~  Is The Summer of France your first novel?
P.K. ~ The Summer of France is my first published novel. I’ve written two other novels that aren’t in print yet.

P.S. ~  What inspired the story?
P.K. ~ I started with the idea of running a bed and breakfast, and I wondered how I could make that work in France. I came up with the uncle who had fought in World War II then never returned to the U.S. because he married a French woman. A story on NPR alerted me to the missing art from World War II and led to the complicated secrets that Uncle Martin hid from his wife and family. That story twist helped flesh out the other characters who were searching for the art, including the delicious Christophe.

P.S. ~ What future writing projects are you planning?
P.K. ~ I hope to publish I See London, I See France later this summer. When Annie’s husband walks out in a snit, she sells her minivan and takes her three kids to Europe in search of the Frenchman who got away. She wants to figure out if she chose the right guy or should be living a different life.
I’m also working on a sequel to The Summer of France.

P.S. ~  What, along with writing, are your primary interests, hobbies, sports, family activities?
P.K. ~ I run most mornings. It’s not like I love it that much, but I try to stay healthy. I also have some friends I run with on Saturday mornings. We call it our group therapy on the trail. My husband and I enjoy bicycling and take ballroom dancing classes.
I have three kids, two in college, so I’m lavishing attention on that final kid at home.
I teach college English and the students give me a lot of energy.
I love to watch college football and Toddlers and Tiaras. I know those shows are diametrically opposed, but there you have it.

P.S. ~ You are one busy lady and life sounds very good! I wish you continued success with your writing and I know we’ll have lots of opportunities in the future to swap stories about France. À bientôt!

P.K. ~ Thanks for the opportunity to share my passion for writing with you all.

The Summer of France Synopsis

When Fia Jennings loses her job at the local newspaper,mail-1 she dreams of bonding with her teenage twins. As she realizes she may be too late to pull her family closer, her husband Grayson pressures her to find another job to pay the increasing bills. Relief comes with a phone call from Fia’s great Uncle Martin who runs a bed and breakfast in Provence. Uncle Martin wants Fia to venture to France to run the B&B so he and his wife Lucie can travel. He doesn’t tell Fia about the secret he hid in the house after fighting in World War II, and he doesn’t mention the people who are tapping his phone and following him, hoping to find the secret.

After much cajoling, Fia whisks her family to France and is stunned when Uncle Martin and Aunt Lucie leave the same day for a Greek cruise. She’s thrown into the minutiae of a running the B&B without the benefit of speaking the language. Her dreams of family bonding time fade as her teenagers make French friends. Fia’s husband Grayson begins touring the countryside with a sophisticated French woman, and Fia resists the distractions of Christophe, a fetching French man. Why the whirlwind of French welcome, Fia wonders after she comes home from a day at the beach in Nice to find someone has ransacked the B&B.

Fia analyzes Uncle Martin’s obscure phone calls, trying to figure out this WW II hero’s secret. Can she uncover the secret and relieve Uncle Martin’s guilt while building the family she’s always dreamed of?

(No violence. No graphic sex, some sexual situations.)

Publication Date: October 2012

230 pages, Oblique Presse, available on Lulu.com , ISBN-10: 1300257334, ISBN-13: 978-1300257332

Available in ebook for $3.99 and paperback for $14 at Amazon.com and in paperback for $14 at Lulu.com

Visit her website www.paulitakincer.com or her blog at www.paulita-ponderings.blogspot.com or like her on Facebook at facebook.com/PaulitaKincerWriter

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Filed Under: Author Promotion, Blog Tagged With: Aix-En-Provence, France Book Tours, Patricia Sands, Paulita Kincer, Provence, The Summer of France, Words And Peace

CanWrite! 2013 … and a French poodle named Maurice …

June 14, 2013 by Patricia Sands Leave a Comment

If it’s Friday, it must be France …

I’m away for a few days at the Canadian Authors Association’s annual conference  ~ CanWrite! Conference 2013. It’s being held in the land of Canada’s beloved humorist (although British-born) Stephen Leacock in  Orillia, Ontario. Leacock and a group of  prominent authors founded the organization in Montreal in 1921 with a goal of lobbying for the protection of authors’ rights.

caa-whw

“Writers helping writers.” What could be better? If you are a writer in Canada and haven’t joined this group yet, get on over to their website and get involved!  Click here … do it! Indie or trad, it doesn’t matter. Writing is what it is all about.

They have branches right across the country and it has been a buzz to meet members from both the east and west coasts there this week.

This weekend is a time to be immersed in workshops, presentations and networking with fellow authors. Heaven! Attending writers conferences is a treat … with enormous benefits. It’s something writers should all try to do when possible.

Yesterday, amongst other good ‘stuff’, super-engaging and enthusiastic author Vikki VanSickle gave an absolutely outstanding presentation on social media. It was an Oscar-worthy talk with valuable information for authors of every level of experience. Thanks again, Vikki!

In the meantime, I don’t want to miss my post today for If it’s Friday, it must be France …

So I’ve invited my friend, Anne-Marie Simons who visited here last week,to stop by again and entertain with another vignette from her delightful book Taking Root in Provence. This had me laughing out loud which you must know by now is one of my favourite things to do!

Et voilà!

 

Book cover smallIt is not unusual to find dogs in restaurants. They are generally accepted and usually no bother at all. But when dogs dine like people and sit on a chair it does get some attention. On a recent trip we spent the night at a hotel with a one-star restaurant where we decided to have dinner. Among our fellow diners was a couple with a poodle. Madame and poodle were seated on a banquette and Monsieur across the table facing them. They selected their menu and soon were served, all three, the same food on the same china. Poodle must have been there before because the waiter addressed him by his name, Maurice. After a while, it really did not seem odd, perhaps because Maurice was perfectly well behaved. He finished his plate without spilling and kept his paws off the table at all times. The only thing he did not do was take a sip of wine, but if he had woof-woofed nicely he might have been served that too.

 

P.S. Taking Root in Provence is reviewed here on Words And Peace today. Another of my fave websites!

Pets in dining establishments are very common in Europe. Are there any restaurants near you that allow this? Have you ever enjoyed the company of your beloved canine as a dinner companion at a restaurant?

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Filed Under: Author Promotion, Blog, News Tagged With: Ann-Marie Simmons, Canadian Author Association, CanWrite! 2013, Orillia, Stephen Leacock, Taking Root In Provence, Vikki VanSickle, Words And Peace

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