Back to France this week, la Provence to be precise. Patricia Sands takes her protagonist from Toronto to Provence (check out the pin on the map), and there seems to be a promise of cheese! Doesn’t get more French than that. Continue reading Pin a Book: The Promise of Provence by Patricia Sands
At the turn of the new year, many people look back at what they did in the past year. Well, thanks to my mother, I got to look back at my entire life. A couple of years ago we gave her a machine that digitalizes old photos, in the hopes that she could save the old slides from the eighties. Well, she did even better; she got the slides and everything else with it! I got an external hard drive under the Christmas tree, filled with photos.
There are some real gems in there that will never ever be shared with anyone, but look what I found:
It’s AZF (and the poudrerie nationale) before the explosion (almost exactly two years before, actually). We used to go walking up to Pêch David quite often because it has a nice view of Toulouse and it only took about thirty minutes on foot from campus. So, yay, I have a “before” picture to go with The Red Brick Haze! And as a bonus, you get a picture of me at nineteen. Yeah, I’d have edited that part out, but I don’t know how…
In case you haven’t read The Red Brick Haze yet (why haven’t you? It’s free!), AZF was a fertilizer factory that blew up on September 21, 2001. It killed 31 people, wounded thousands, ruined the immediate area around it, and destroyed one third of the city’s windows. The area has since been transformed into a cancer research center, which is what you’ll see if you look at a Google map for example (what do you know, I have one right here – check out the AZF pin).
It was very difficult to determine the exact cause of the explosion, so many theories still exist. A trial was held in 2009, with the person responsible for the site judged for manslaughter, but that didn’t necessarily stop people from theorizing. I guess that’s part of why my brain thought it would be a good idea to include it in a story!
I’m kicking off the new year with a book promising 300 days of sun – sounds like a good idea in the middle of winter, doesn’t it? Deborah Lawrenson takes us to Faro, Portugal in her novel, 300 Days of Sun
The Red Brick Haze, a prequel to The Red Brick Cellars, is finally ready. It’s available on all the usual retailers
No good deed goes unpunished.
When an explosion lays waste to part of the city of Toulouse and the citizens attempt to recover in the ravaged cityscape, Louis runs to the aid of people in need.
Chivalrous intent clashes with nefarious goals as Louis has to save himself and those he loves.
If you enjoy the story, I’d very much appreciate an honest review on Amazon, so that other readers can also discover it!
Or, just let me know what you think 🙂
Back to France this week, with Helen Pollard‘s The Little French Guesthouse
Exotic new location this week: Shanghai. Alan Carter takes us there in his book, Bad Seed
Very exotic location this week! Fiji 🙂 Marianne Wheelaghan takes us there with her story, The Shoeshine Killer
Back to Paris, this time with Aimée Leduc, Cara Black‘s heroine from Murder on the Quai
After a long absence (let’s call it Summer holiday) I finally have a new book to show you! In The Bookseller
Back to India! Calcutta, to be precise, where Abir Mukherjee’s A Rising Man
Continue reading Pin a Book: A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee
