Are you planning a trip this spring? I’ve been looking forward to our April trip to Charleston ever since we first booked it. While I’m still very much a city girl, I absolutely love any chance I get to be close to the ocean. Whether you’re spending your time away on the beach, or curled up in a cozy robe while enjoying a bit of me-time in your hotel room, here are the six books that you’ll want to bring along in your suitcase.
London in Bloom
Georgianna Lane
London in Bloom showcases the floral abundance of the English capital’s extraordinary parks, gardens, florists, and flower markets. In this companion to her popular books Paris in Bloomand New York in Bloom, Georgianna Lane takes us on a romantic floral tour of London, juxtaposing luscious blooms with intricate floral details found in the city’s iconic architecture. The book also includes a detailed list of recommended parks, gardens, markets, and floral designers; a spring tour of blossoms and blooms; a field guide of common spring-blooming trees and shrubs; and step-by-step instructions for creating a London-style bouquet. For flower lovers and Anglophiles alike, London in Bloom offers a unique and irresistible view of London. — Goodreads
Check out my interview with Georgianna about the first book of the ‘In Bloom’ series, Paris in Bloom and my review of New York in Bloom.
The Vineyards of Champagne
Juliet Blackwell
Beneath the cover of France’s most exquisite vineyards, a city of women defy an army during World War I, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Carousel of Provence….
Deep within the labyrinth of caves that lies below the lush, rolling vineyards of the Champagne region, an underground city of women and children hums with life. Forced to take shelter from the unrelenting onslaught of German shellfire above, the bravest and most defiant women venture out to pluck sweet grapes for the harvest. But wine is not the only secret preserved in the cool, dark cellars…
In present day, Rosalyn Acosta travels to Champagne to select vintages for her Napa-based employer. Rosalyn doesn’t much care for champagne–or France, for that matter. Since the untimely death of her young husband, Rosalyn finds it a challenge to enjoy anything at all. But as she reads through a precious cache of WWI letters and retraces the lives lived in the limestone tunnels, Rosalyn will unravel a mystery hidden for decades…and find a way to savor her own life again. — Penguin Random House
Read my interview with Juliet here. Also read my interview voice artist Xe Sands who narrated the audiobook!
The Insecure Girls Handbook
oLivia Purvis
Oh hi! My name’s Olivia and I am *clears throat* a long-time member of the Insecure Girls’ Club. If you are too, then you’re not alone – a recent study found 62% of girls and women feel insecure or not sure of themselves, with 7 out of 10 believing they don’t measure up. But it doesn’t have to be this way! There are ways out of those slumps and the days where we feel unsure about ourselves, and that’s where this book comes in.
The Insecure Girl’s Handbook will guide you through your insecurity no matter what life stage you’re at, pointing out the pitfalls of people pleasing, negative backchat and crippling comparison along the way. It’s a carefully curated toolkit of tried and tested mechanisms and small pearls of wisdom to start combatting that feeling that holds us back from speaking up, from following our dreams or even feeling that our dreams aren’t good or big enough. I hope it will provide you with a comforting hug and pep talk, from one insecure girl to another, so you can stop imposter syndrome in its tracks and halt the waves of self-doubt that sometimes unexpectedly flood our work life, friendships, relationships and every other crevice in between.
So, here’s to treating ourselves like we treat others, putting ourselves first and being the secure and thoughtful women that we know we can be. I know you’re good enough – and by the time you’ve finished reading, I’m positive you’ll think so too.
The New Parisienne
Lindsey Tramuta
The New Parisienne focuses on one of the city’s most prominent features, its women. Lifting the veil on the mythologized Parisian woman—white, lithe, ever fashionable—Lindsey Tramuta demystifies this oversimplified archetype and recasts the women of Paris as they truly are, in all their complexity. Featuring 50 activists, creators, educators, visionaries, and disruptors—like Leïla Slimani, Lauren Bastide, and Mayor Anne Hidalgo—the book reveals Paris as a blossoming cultural center of feminine power. Both the featured women and Tramuta herself offer up favorite destinations and women-owned businesses, including beloved shops, artistic venues, bistros, and more. The New Parisienne showcases “Parisianness” in all its multiplicity, highlighting those who are bucking tradition, making names for themselves, and transforming the city.
This book is due to be released on 4/21. Interview with Lindsey coming soon!
The Words I Never Wrote
Jane Thynne
A chance discovery inside a vintage typewriter case reveals the gripping story of two sisters on opposite sides of World War II in this captivating novel for readers of Lilac Girls and The Women in the Castle.
New York, present day: On a whim, Juno Lambert buys a 1931 Underwood typewriter that once belonged to celebrated journalist Cordelia Capel. Within its case she discovers an unfinished novel, igniting a transatlantic journey to fill the gaps in the story of Cordelia and her sister and the secret that lies between them.
Europe, 1936: Cordelia’s socialite sister Irene marries a German industrialist who whisks her away to Berlin. Cordelia, feistier and more intellectual than Irene, gets a job at a newspaper in Paris, pursuing the journalism career she cherishes. As politics begin to boil in Europe, the sisters exchange letters and Cordelia discovers that Irene’s husband is a Nazi sympathizer. With increasing desperation, Cordelia writes to her beloved sister, but as life in Nazi Germany darkens, Irene no longer dares admit what her existence is truly like. Knowing that their letters cannot tell the whole story, Cordelia decides to fill in the blanks by sitting down with her Underwood and writing the truth.
When Juno reads the unfinished novel, she resolves to uncover the secret that continued to divide the sisters amid the turmoil of love, espionage, and war. In this vivid portrait of Nazi Berlin, from its high society to its devastating fall, Jane Thynne examines the truths we sometimes dare not tell ourselves. — Penguin Random House
Read my interview with Jane here.
The Chocolatier
Jan Moran
A young widow. A husband she thought she knew. On the picturesque Italian coast of Amalfi lies a chocolatier’s destiny…
San Francisco, 1953: Heartbroken over the mysterious death of her husband, Celina Savoia, a second-generation chocolatière, resolves to take their young son to Italy’s shimmering Amalfi coast to introduce him to his father’s family. Just as she embarks on a magical, romantic life of making chocolate by the sea surrounded by a loving family, she begins to suspect that her husband had a dark secret–forged in the final days of WWII–that could destroy the relationships she’s come to cherish.
While a second chance at love is tempting, the mystery of her husband’s true identity thwarts her efforts. Challenged to pursue the truth or lose the life and those she’s come to love, Celina and her late husband’s brother, Lauro, must trace the past to a remote, Peruvian cocoa region to face the deceit that threatens to shatter their lives.
In The Chocolatier, Jan Moran offers a testament to the resilience of love, along with insights into the fascinating world of chocolate-making. The Chocolatier is available in ebook, trade paperback, audiobook, hardcover, and large print editions. For readers of Danielle Steel, Renee Rosen, Robyn Carr, Susan Meissner, and Gill Paul.
Interview with Jan coming soon!
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