New eBook for Review: Contemporary Women’s Fiction ‘Paris Adieu’ by Rozsa Gaston

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Rozsa Gaston will be touring March 5 – 23 with her contemporary women’s fiction novel, Paris Adieu.

The first time Ava Fodor visits Paris as a nineteen-year old au pair, her French boyfriend introduces her to the concept of being comfortable in her own skin. If only she knew how…

One Ivy League degree later, she’s back for an encounter with a Frenchman that awakens her to womanhood. If only she could stay….

Five years later, Ava returns to Paris as a singer/pianist. She falls for Arnaud, whose frequent travel tortures her. While he’s away, a surprising stranger helps Ava on her journey to self-discovery. Armed with the lessons Paris has taught her, she bids adieu to Arnaud, Pierre and her very first love – the City of Light.

Excerpt:

Strolling in the Tuileries gardens on a late March day, Jean-Michel alerted me to a woman who had just passed.

“C’est une jolie laide.” — It’s a pretty-ugly one.

Huh?

I turned to catch the back of her henna’d reddish purple hair and bony legs. He motioned to continue walking around the pond until we passed her again.

This time I pretended to look at some children playing behind the smallish woman as we approached. Her sharp, vixenish face had a pleased-with-herself expression on it. Its most prominent feature was a long nose with a definite bump. Her legs were nothing to write home about. No text book from any country would have categorized her as a beauty.

“She is beautiful, no?” Jean-Michel murmured to me, once out of earshot.

“Um, she’s got something going on, for sure,” I replied truthfully, a little envious. What woman with any sense of how crooked and short her legs were, would dress them up in designer tights and stiletto boots? Yet, she’d looked undeniably hot. Apparently Jean-Michel thought so too.

Instead of giving in to my preconceptions, I opened my mind to his. I had so much to learn from him and besides – I was working on becoming comfortable in my own skin these days, wasn’t I? I could at least fake it ‘til I make it, I told myself.

“A jolie laide is a woman who is beautiful even though she is not. She has something that is considered ugly, but on her, it’s not. It’s part of her charm,” he explained.

I was all ears. We circled the pond again, hoping the woman would do the same. She did. This time I pretended to spot something on the ground while I studied the suede, stiletto-heeled black boots she wore over grey and black striped tights covering slim short, legs with knobby knees. The content wasn’t amazing, but the presentation certainly was. Brava, I silently complimented her as we walked by.

What the heck could a pretty-ugly woman have that a just plain pretty woman didn’t have over her? Apparently, plenty. I searched my mind to think of a jolie laide I might have known somewhere in my past. I’d never contemplated the concept before, but as soon as Jean-Michel explained it to me, I understood. Something niggled at me, reminding me there’d been a woman like that in my own short past.

In a minute, I had it. Voilà.

Joelle. She had been a waitress I’d worked with back in Hartford, Connecticut, the summer before music college at a French restaurant called La Crêpe. It was a chain of restaurants that served crêpes in the style of Brittany, the region next to the Atlantic Coast of France, west of Paris, where Celts had settled in the fifth and sixth centuries — probably because the food was better than back in the British Isles. The waitresses had worn cute blue dirndl skirts with suspenders, white lace blouses and enormous white Breton head-dresses. They’d looked sexy in a sweet sort of way. I’d applied for the job because I knew in an outfit like that I’d meet guys.

Joelle had been short, bony and chic with a bump in her nose, just like the woman we’d passed in the park. The other waitresses were in awe of her. Her boyfriend had picked her up every day after work. During her shift she flirted with any male customer she found interesting, regardless of whether they were in female company or not. She had been in total command of herself and not surprisingly – French.

I’d soaked up every move she made, marveling to myself that she was not even mildly attractive, but her perception of herself announced to the world she was a knockout. The men appeared to buy it. To me it didn’t matter if she was beautiful or not. She was powerful.

Joelle had been a jolie laide.

“I know what you mean,” I whispered back. “Like maybe a bump in a certain woman’s nose isn’t just a bump on her. It’s a beauty feature?”

“Précisément,” Jean-Michel agreed. “It’s precisely the feature about her that a man falls in love with.”

Something clicked inside my brain.

Reviews:

“Paris Adieu makes a fun book for my book club. The story of Ava coming of age in Paris is as fascinating, glamorous and entertaining as the City of Light itself.”

— Victoria Kann, New York Times bestselling author of Pinkalicious and the Pink Pumpkin

“In Paris Adieu, Rozsa Gaston draws readers into the story (and inner thoughts) of nineteen-year old, Ava, a New Englander who struggles with a severe case of “lack-of-planitis” and the constant criticism of an unsympathetic grandmother. Much to her grandmothers’ dismay, Ava recently left college and works part time at a gas station. That is, until she hatches a plan to work as an au pair in Paris. With vivid detail and humor, Gaston takes readers straight into the heart of Paris through the eyes and ears of Ava, to a seductive land, where we smell pastries from her favorite bakery and meander through famous parks and museums, where we meet the French lover who urges Ava, always self-conscious about her body, to feel comfortable in her own skin. Throughout, Gaston writes with a deep appreciation for sensuality that will keep readers attentive to Ava’s every adventure.”

– – Kim Nagy, Executive Editor,Wild River Review

“Ava Fodor is young, funny and ready for trouble, particularly when it comes to French men. From the opening pages, Ava engages with her wry voice. This is a story that’s certain to touch a chord with readers who may remember their own first efforts to find love.”

– – Susan Breen, author of The Fiction Class

322 pages

You can visit her website at http://www.parisadieu.com.

PLEASE NOTE THIS BOOK IS ONLY AVAILABLE IN EBOOK FORMAT. PLEASE SPECIFY WHETHER YOU NEED THE PDF, KINDLE (MOBI) OR NOOK (EPUB) FILES. ROZSA IS ALSO AVAILABLE FOR GUEST POSTS AND INTERVIEWS. THANK YOU!

If you would like to review Paris Adieu, please fill out the form below or email Dorothy Thompson at thewriterslife(at)gmail.com. Please mention which date would work for you. Deadline for inquiries end February 25 or until the tour is filled. Thank you!

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