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Delicious Monday...News!! Delicious news!!

    

I mentioned I would have some news soon… Friday, I learned that Harlequin will, indeed, launch a new trade paperback program in April 2009.  The new program will include books from both the Next and Everlasting lines.  They will release one book per month alternating Nexts and Everlastings in a two-books-in-one package. I am pleased to report that my story, “An American Angel in Paris,” will be paired with my previously published Next Novel, “What Happens in Paris.”  It’s scheduled for release in October 2009.  The books will be shelved in single title section and will be branded with the Harlequin name. 

Art Thursday... Luncheon on the Grass

Luncheon on the Grass (Le dejeuner sur l’herbe) is the painting that earned Manet the title of rebel artist.  Her entered it in the 1863 Paris Salon, but it was rejected because the academics thought his juxtaposition of fully-dressed men and a nude woman was scandalous. So, they said, was his sketch-like technique—an innovation that soon became his trademark. So what was a guy to do when the establishment rejected him and brands him a scoundrel?  He took his luncheon party to the Salon des Refusés (Salon of the rejected), an exhibit Emperor Napoleon III initiated after the Paris Salon rejected more than 4,000 paintings in 1863. It was at the Salon des Refusés that he garnered the attention that would soon elevate him to master status.

   

Art Thursday... Mother and Daughter

I just finished line edits on my October Special Edition, The Accidental Princess. I overnighted them to my editor yesterday.  Last night, I slept the sleep of the dead.  It's a wonderful feeling to finish a project.  To me writing a book is akin to carving a sculpture.  Sometimes it shapes easily - as with clay. Other times it's more like chiseling each scene from a block of marble. Either way, the end result is always thrilling!

Speaking of sculpture... today is Art Thursday. That means I have for you another Impressionist painting that relates to With Violets. 

After Berthe married Eugene, they had one child, a girl named, Julie, who ended up being quite an artist herself. This Renoir painting, Berthe Morisot and her Daughter Julie, shows Berthe in her later years.

Today, I plan on taking the day off.  I will do nothing more than brew tea and read. Ahhh...sounds like heaven. How do you celebrate the completion of a project that takes a lot out of you?

Art Thursday... Trocadéro Then and Now

The Trocadéro is an area of Paris in the 16^th arrondissement, across the River Seine from the Eiffel Tower. The location of the gorgeous Berth Morisot painting, "On the Balcony," appears to be slightly west of the Trocadéro.  It also happened to be Berthe's neighborhood, Passy.  The last time I was in Paris, I roamed the streets of Passy looking for signs that she once lived there.  Aside from her grave in the Cimetiére de Passy (where she's buried in the Manet family plot along side both Édouard Manet and her husband, Eugène  Manet), I saw the church where she and Eugène  married and the apartment where she and Eugène lived afterward. Unfortunately, the house she grew up in is no longer standing. I spent a great deal of time gazing across the Seine (from both directions -- from the terrace of the Trocadéro and from the Eiffel Tower on the other side of the river) trying to block out the modern sounds of people and traffic, trying to imagine Berthe’s 19^th century Passy.

The first picture is, of course Berthe’s  "On the Balcony" painting done around 1872.  The second is a photo of the modern Trocadéro – look to the far left of the photo, just above the tree line and you’ll see the gold-domed Church at the Invalides, located on the leftbank in the 7^th arrondissement (where we stayed in a great little apartment off the rue Cler). If you’ll look back up at Berthe’s painting, you’ll see the same dome near the right side of the canvas (which makes me think she was a bit west of the Trocadéro). The final photo is one of me on the mid-level observation deck of the Eiffel Tower -- on the other side of the Seine from the location of her painting. So, the view behind me would’ve been where she was painting and the models -- Berthe's sister Yves and niece 'Bichette' – were standing.

Have you ever visited a place you’ve read about/dreamed of visiting?  Where was it and did it live up to your expectations?