Category: Art History

+Blog Book Tour+ “I Looked for the One My Heart Loves” by Dominique Marny, a French literary novel in translation!

Posted Friday, 5 September, 2014 by jorielov , , , , 5 Comments

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I Looked For the One My Heart Loves by Dominique Marny

I Looked for the One my Heart Loves Blog Tour via France Book Tours

Published By: Publishers Square , 12 August, 2014

a publishing partner of Open Road Integrated Media, Inc 

Twitter: (@OpenRoadMedia)Facebook

Originally Published as:

J’ai cherché celui que mon coeur aime  (I Sought Him Whom my Soul Loves)

{ IF I may add a small note on the titles: the original title in direct English translation suits this novel! }

(by Presses de la Cite), 2011

Available Formats:  Paperback, Ebook

Translated by:  Jean Charbonneau

Author Connections: Site | Facebook

Converse on Twitter: #ILookedForTheOneMyHeartLoves & #FranceBT

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Acquired Book By: I was selected to be a tour stop on the “I Looked for the One My Heart Loves” virtual book tour through France Book Tours. I received a complimentary ARC copy of the book direct from the publisher Open Road Media, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

+Blog Book Tour+ “I Looked for the One My Heart Loves” by Dominique Marny, a French literary novel in translation!I Looked For the One My Heart Loves
by (Translator) Jean Charbonneau, Dominique Marny
Source: Publisher via France Book Tours

Anne and Alexis are separated by war as children and reunited later by destiny. A powerful and dramatic love story that spans decades in spite of its seeming impossibility.

Anne, 9, and Alexis, 11, grow up together in the Montmartre area of Paris. While she has a major crush on him, he merely sees her as his friend’s little sister. After WWII begins, the two are separated as their families flee Paris to avoid the German occupation. When they say goodbye, Alexis promises to always protect Anne.

Anne holds on to this promise for years as she constantly thinks of Alexis, wondering where he may be. Anne grows up, finds works in an art gallery, and marries a kind, devoted man with whom she has two children. But her heart still belongs to Alexis and she never stops looking for him. Their paths cross fatefully one day in Brussels many years after they were separated.

Alexis, living in Canada and soon to be moving to San Francisco, has a family of his own; a wife in constant depression and a son. Despite their responsibilities to family and the geographical distance that keeps them apart, Anne and Alexis find a way to love one another, secretly yet passionately.

But after all this time, will they ever manage to be truly together, completely?

Genres: Contemporary Romance



Places to find the book:

Published by Open Road Integrated Media Inc, Publishers Square

on 12th August, 2014

Pages: 384

Author Biography: Dominique Marny 

Dominique Marny was raised in a family that loves art, literature, adventure and travels. In addition to being a novelist, she is a playwright, screenwriter, and writes for various magazines.

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A shortened & condensed reading of a World War:

One of the gifts Marny gives her readers is a shortened and condensed reading of a World War, by attaching a full historical enriched scope of the French side of World War II. Knitted into the arc of the chapter which begins in 1939 is an intact re-creation of all the pertinent moments which had the most impact on French families and citizens. She approached this section of her novel with an intensity yet intermixed a warmth of hope and love of family, as she focuses on Anne as a central figure to highlight the discrepancies as you would observe them. By focusing on Anne during this time, we see the war through the eyes of an innocent child whose wishful thinking and dreams are nearly curtailed by the haunting realities of what war can bring into your world view.

Marny does a considerable job at bringing us right into the heat of the bombings flying over Paris to the lesser known anguished moments of separation from school friends and the family members who live too far away to commute to see when living under German occupation. I appreciated seeing everything Anne saw and breathing in a side of the war I had not yet felt touched in other stories.

My Review of I Looked for the One My Heart Loves:

As the story opens centered on a family living in France on the fringes of World War II developing into their lives, we peer into the young life of Anne, of whom we greeted at a cemetery decades later before warming into her years of childhood. The transitional shift left me curious to know not only of whom the grave marker belonged too, but who the curious stranger was in front of her visiting the same grave! As a young child, Anne felt the full measure of anguished sorrow for how a new Great War would impact her life and the ones she cared about the most. She was at the impressionable age where knowing about what feared adults was enough to fear a child. Her brother Bernard was like a typical brother, bent on teasing his sister and tormenting her with either embarrassment in front of their peers or telling her things she would rather not know at all. The two were caught up in the tides of a changing world – where freedom and the sanctity of family would be tested.

The mass exodus out of Paris into safer areas of France is depicted with equal measures of heightened alarm for safety and the arduous tension in walking or biking hours at at time reach a destination. Although I had known Paris and London were left behind for only those who could brave the war which arrived on their doorsteps, I had not yet read of what Parisians had gone through during the developing days leading into World War II. I have oft read war dramas from the perspective of the British during this war, and therefore, am a bit remiss on knowing more about the French. When I read Letters from Skye, I learnt a great deal about the front lines and the intensity of staying hopeful amidst uncertainty.  Marny and Brockmole have a way of placing us into the heart of the French people and the plight of France during the war itself in such a way as to feel as though we lived the hours ourselves.

The entire first section of this novel is a beautiful eclipse of how war affects a young girl and how her life is different by living through war as it altered her neighbourhood and disrupted the lives of everyone she knew. She held a candle lit for the young boy she held an infatuation of concern for during the bombings of Paris; never knowing where his family had fled a few years before when Paris was starting to feel the blitz of the bombers. The bond she felt for Alexis and the growing love she knew was in her heart for him is what helped her endure. She cast her thoughts on his own well-being and although they lived apart during the war, her spirit was tied to his.

After the war, Anne started to fuse her passion for art into a passionate career, all the while curious about where Alexis had gone inside his own life’s adventure. She was not one who strove to entertain the idea of marriage, but rather was found in the throes of loving a man who genuinely loved her in return. Her life took on a rhythm part of her choosing and part of choosing to live a life that might become expected of her to curate. Because she elected to make choices in her life based on where society and convention were guiding her to tread, she ended up closing the door on her own heart’s desire. Anne’s life because a swirling sea of art acquisitions and galley showings featuring artists both renowned and starting out to gain an audience. As the years started to encompass her hours, even motherhood did not tether her heart to happiness.

It was always a nudge inside her mind that she had missed something, or rather that she had missed the opportunity to be with someone she always felt was more her equal and her other half. Alexis was only a boy when they departed from each others’ lives, yet the candle that once flickered for him turnt into a fiery flame renewed through happenstance which led them into that daring twist of fate where deciding which path you take in life can either be your downfall or your unexpected blessing.

I was a bit betwixt myself as I read this novel if I agreed with her choice to follow after Alexis; and I credit this vacillation to a previous novel I read in August Lemongrass Hope, of whose thematic of choice parallels I Looked for the One My Heart Loves. In many ways, what left me feeling a bit aghast is that the lead character in Lemongrass Hope found beauty and joy inside being a mother – to consider leaving her children even if she had chosen to live a different life than she dreamt for herself was a cross she was not willing to bear, yet the path she chose to live was one that surprised me in the end. Anne on the other hand is career-driven and is not willed to her children as Kate was to hers and this in of itself shows the differences within motherhood and the connection a mother shares with her children. However, for me personally, I felt Anne came off more self-centered and selfish than Kate, as Kate was caught between fate and true love. Anne never had the luxury of experiencing what Kate had with Ian, and therefore, in this instance I sided with Francois over Anne. On a lot of levels, Francois and Anne were identical to each other: each were dedicated to their professions to where they approached marriage and children second to their career.

Lemongrass Hope matches this novel for exploring the fragility of the human heart and the yearnings of a powerful mind bent on pursuing its own convicting motivation. For me, although I enjoyed reading this novel, I found myself a bit wanton of wanting to dig back into Lemongrass Hope. In a lot of ways I felt Impellizzeri had won me over for how she handled the truism of a conflicted heart and soul. Whereas Marny gave me a breath of insight into the French who survived the war and the carefree approach to living I always felt the French embraced as a celebration for life itself.

On writing a unique Romance set against time, memory, and war:

I appreciated the honesty and raw emotions that Marny stitched into her novel, as she has written a very unique Romance set against time, memory, and war. The initial reactions I felt to the story of Anne and Alexis were two people caught up in each others’ lives who drifted apart out from war. Yet, when I soaked into the story, I started to see the complexity of understanding who we choose to love and who we might have let go from our life without realising they were the ones our heart had chosen to love before our mind even realised the connection. Both of Marny’s characters made choices to marry against their own will in some ways, because neither was quite ready for what marriage would bring into their life.

The honesty within their thoughts and the actions they took after their reconnection warmed me to their story, because life as in fiction, choices can determine the fate of where we end up in our lives. And, not everything is straight-up right nor wrong, there are in-between places as well. The one I felt a bit sorry for in the story were Anne’s husband Francois, who truly loved Anne in a way she could not quite reciprocate. This is not merely a Romance novel but a literary novel centered on human emotions and the conflictions of understanding the line between desire and adultery.

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Meet Dominique Marny via OpenRoadMedia

Inspired to Share:

I always appreciate seeing a video about an author I am about to read, and in this one I appreciated getting to know someone who speaks a different language than I do, because through the sub-titles and the way in which Ms. Marny describes the story she’s written, I felt connected in a way that would lend a curiosity to read her novel. I hope you appreciate seeing her inside this short introduction as much as I had originally.

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Virtual Road Map for 
I Looked for the One My Heart Loves” Blog Tour:

I Looked for the One my Heart Loves Blog Tour via France Book Tours

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Be sure to scope out upcoming tours I will be hosting with:

France Book Tours

 via my
Bookish Events badge created by Jorie in Canva
{SOURCES: Cover art of “I Looked for the One My Heart Loves”, book synopsis, author photograph of Mr. Malaval, author biography, and the tour host badge were all provided by France Book Tours and used with permission. The introduction video of author Jean-Paul Malaval by Open Road Media & Bordeaux travelogue by TravelTherapyTV had either URL share links or coding which made it possible to embed this media portal to this post, and I thank them for the opportunity to share more about this novel and the author who penned it. Blog Tour badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Tweets were able to be embedded by the codes provided by Twitter. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Bookish Events & France Book Tours badge created by Jorie in Canva.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.

The ‘live reading’ tweets I shared as I read & reviewed “I Looked for the One My Heart Loves”:

{ favourite & Re-tweet if inspired to share }

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

  • Go Indie
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Posted Friday, 5 September, 2014 by jorielov in 20th Century, Aftermath of World War II, ARC | Galley Copy, Art, Art History, Author Interview, Blog Tour Host, Bookish Discussions, Bookish Films, Death, Sorrow, and Loss, Family Drama, France, France Book Tours, French Literature, French Novel Translated into English, French Resistance, Geographically Specific, Good vs. Evil, Historical Fiction, Historical Romance, Indie Author, Life Shift, Literary Fiction, Military Fiction, Romance Fiction, School Life & Situations, Siblings, Singletons & Commitment, The World Wars, War Drama, War-time Romance

*Blog Book Tour*: The House Girl by Tara Conklin

Posted Tuesday, 12 November, 2013 by jorielov , , , 5 Comments

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The House Girl by Tara Conklin

The House Girl

Published By: William Morrow,

an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (12, February 2013 [hardback]

Published By: William Morrow Paperbacks, 5, November 2013 [paperback]

Official Author Websites: Conklin on Facebook; Conklin on Twitter;

Personal Website and Contributor @ Popcorn the Blog.

Available Formats: Paperback, Hardback, and E-Book Page Count: 400

Converse on Twitter: #TheHouseGirl

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Acquired Book By: Book Browse First Impressions Programme: I received a complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review on Book Browse, from the publisher William Morrow. The House Girl was amongst the offerings for November 2012, as this book was published in February 2013. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared therein or herein. Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com On Being a Part of the Blog Book Tour: Whilst I submitted my application to work with TLC Book Tours, I had mentioned that I have read this particular book as I noted they were going to launch a blog book tour for it in November 2013; to celebrate the paperback release! I thought it would be nice to participate in a blog book tour on behalf of a book that truly not only captivated my imagination but is of a story that I have never fully let go of since I put the book down! I was thankful to be placed on the tour! Therefore, this is my second reading of this story based on the ARC I previously received. I will juxtaposition my original thoughts alongside my new impressions as they are revealed! I did not receive compensation for my participation on this book tour! Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com Inspired to Re-Visit: As a reader there are always those particular books that stand out to us, stories and characters who have a way of transforming our perspective as much as endearing us to a particular time in history that was wholly different from the time we live in ourselves. These are the stories that challenge us to dig into the heart of the narrative to seek out the truth of which the writer is imparting to us. Through their words of choice, as much as the fingering nudges they urge us to open our eyes to, a portion of history that is hard to reconcile even today. They endeavour us to seek humanity and empathy as they seek to obliterate social prejudices whilst revealing a story that is not only multi-layered but dimensionally complex. This is one of those stories that leaves you ruminative as you close the book sleeves and sit pondering the greater message that has been revealed in its ending.

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Listen to an Excerpt:

The House Girl by Tara Conklin

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comSlipping Back in Time and Forward Again:

Conklin weaves her narrative forward and backwards between Josephine’s world in the mid to late 1800s, and Lina’s in the present day, given us the full force of each woman’s plight as their individual circumstances start to unfold. Josephine is not a free slave when the story begins, as she earnestly wants to run to freedom and enter into a new life she has dared not allow herself to imagine. Her sole friend and confidante was Lottie, a woman of passionate faith mixed with an indomitable spirit despite the hardship of loss she has suffered. The two women forged a friendship which consoled Josephine as the years waxed onward. Their lives were always interrupted by the absence of sold-off slaves, of whom they had grown attached too and suddenly never knew what had become of them next. The worst part of their lives was the broken connections between friends, family, and offspring. No living histories could be formed in other words, which led many to question and wonder what ever became of anyone they had ever known.

Lina on the other hand, is caught between where her life has led her and where her heart is leading her to go next. She is harbouring deep seeded anguish murmuring from her past into her present, as she attempts to break free once and for all. She has closed her heart to seeking out a way to let love back into her life as she has walled herself against being close to anyone who could bring her discomfort or loss. What she wasn’t realising is that a life without love is a sure way to live a half-fulfilled life which would only bring regret in the end. The ability to make two cornerstone eras reminiscent through narrative, dialogue, and elemental knowledge of the eras themselves is a nodding to how Conklin fuses the story within the time setting of The House Girl. She diverts your mind from realising there is a time slip happening as you shift further into the folds of the novel, soaking in the natural world through Josephine’s eyes and taking in the repulsive angst of a reparations case in Lina’s. Whichever setting you find yourself present in per chapter you’re not in your current time and place, but rather are living through the spirit and eyes of Conklin’s lead heroines. As for me, both Josephine and Lina are heroines in their own rights, having transcended everything that was holding them back.

My Review of The House Girl [one year later] for TLC Book Tours:

The story opens inside an ordinary day in Josephine’s, where she has to endure more abuse from her Master. Her eye is always attached to the outside world noticing the most insignificant details. It’s in these details her true freedom begins. She drinks in a piece of joy whilst walking barefoot in the grass, a moment for her that meant more than what could be observed in its simplicity. She was bourne into a world of unjust rules thrust upon her and those like her to live with the heaviest of burdens without the rights afforded to them. To live in a world where you had no say in what became of you is the hardest part of the story to drink in as a reader. Your heart starts to grieve as Josephine and Lottie’s intimate conversations paint the stark realities of their world. Where even the necessity of medical care was not given as an option. Her only resolve was to focus on the task at hand which gave her a purpose for the hour. It wasn’t enough to keep her thoughts away from running, but it helped to keep her focus off her nerves.

As time slips back into the present, Lina comes into view as a lawyer bent under the pressures of being on the fast track to success. A slave in her own right to the work load she is drowning inside. Lina suffers from lack of self-esteem and self-confidence in both her work ethic and her abilities to provide the services her clients are in need of most. She finds that her position at the law firm is all but redundant as the work she puts in is not even close to being necessary. She is finding that her role in life is being a cog in the wheel to where her fated course is up to someone else. She has missed the ability to feel as though she is making a difference rather than only doing what is expected of her. When she is assigned the reparations case to seek a living heir through the descendants of Josephine Bell and to provide proof of provenance for the artwork which was recovered (as there is an issue of who the artist actually was), she finds her true self. She starts to shed  the outer barrier that kept her at a distance from becoming close to others and starts to find her voice through following the path of Josephine; the house girl who dreamt of freedom in the Underground Railroad.

In direct comparison, here is my Original Review for Book Browse First Impressions:

Art Redeems the Soul

Josephine Bell is the catalyst that launches an inquiry into the historical past, to unearth the mystery of what happened to the artist who fashioned the artwork that survived time. Her story is not unlike others in her class and station, in the late 1800’s. A slave bound to her Master’s wife, as a house girl confined to their land and their rules. A life that would have gone unnoticed until an unsuspecting lawyer (Lina) in the 21st century (early 2000’s) is giving the task to unearth data on a case that would give back redemption to those who have all but been erased by modern history. This isn’t just a story that evokes the tragedy of those enslaved in the South, but rather a silver lining of Hope… that their lives took on greater meaning and purpose when their lives started to intersect with others. It’s through this intersection where the ripples of small kindnesses and hours of bravery, began to change the lives of others. I found that inside the secondary characters held within the House Girl, the simplest of truths to step forward. Peace with Self. Strength in Resolve. Determined Self Reliance. And the hope of freedom. Oppression comes in different forms, as even those who live free are not always free to do what their hearts desire.

I believe this would make an excellent addition to an Art History class or a Civil Rights class which focuses on slavery in the South. The tone of the book is uplifting, shattering past the blights of misery to yield a lens into how strong women can be in the moments that count the most.

My cross-comparison of my feelings separated by a year between readings:

Initially when I first read The House Girl, I had a lot of thoughts and feelings running through my head at the time I was reading the narrative, so much in fact, I nearly felt like I should have a blog to write everything down and share with other readers! Fast forward to when I was applying to be a tour hostess for TLC Book Tours, and the opportunity arose to re-read this lovely novel that never quite left my conscience since I originally read it! All those swirling thoughts started to re-surface, but I tried to keep them at bay, in order to best re-visit a book I had previously read! I liked the challenge of this particular book tour, as it would stretch me completely outside my comfort zone as I have never re-read a book for a tour beforehand! I liked the fact that I would have to not only challenge my heart to approach the story with a new pair of eyes but to keep myself focused on the hidden depths of the novel that I might have overlooked or missed during my first reading!

Therefore, I can attest that as I was musing about the message of The House Girl, I found myself a bit at a loss for words to purport it into focus in a clear and even paragraph. This is a novel that is best read by feeling the story by your heart and the evoking emotions that comes out of internalising the story you’ve just read. I was deeply attached to each character at different parts of the story’s thread, as you get to see different pieces of their souls shining through at different intervals. In my mind, there wouldn’t have been much to lament about on Lina’s behalf if Josephine Bell hadn’t been in her life; likewise, I feel as though Josephine Bell’s life was to give a living testament and tribute to her descendants once the provenance of her artwork was discovered. The greater truth I think is the perception we have of blood relations and the essence of who we are on the outside as a mirror image of who we are on the inside.

The House Girl challenges the perception of ancestral lines and blood ties as passed down through the generations from the original start of a hereditary chain. It seeks to point to the truth of who we are as a society and who we endeavour to become. I still stand by what I spoke about a year ago, as there is such a determined spirit to The House Girl, as far as taking bold steps to overcome your circumstances as much as being bold in your faith when you feel all hope has been lost. As you unravel the heart of the story, you start to see the other layers which were intuitively stitched into the tapestry of Josephine and Lina’s entwined story-lines. Even now, a full year later, I find that my final sentence in my original review is the key for me to think back upon this story with fond affection: The tone of the book is uplifting, shattering past the blights of misery to yield a lens into how strong women can be in the moments that count the most.

Empathy wrapped inside Sophisticated Prose:

Tara Conlin photo credit Mary Grace Long
Photo Credit: Mary Grace Long

Ms. Conklin has a wonderful ability for drawing empathy and compassion out of her narrative whilst wrapping her story inside sophisticated prose which speaks to a higher message. Her willingness to delve into the deeper levels of humanity and uncertainty for each of her characters’ lives, gives the reader a first-hand impression of where the story led her to go as she wrote it. I was struck by her honest way of writing the time slip between Josephine and Lina, to where neither century felt forced or conjectured. She uses words to paint the time eclipse of each woman on the cusp of a season of change arriving into their lives when they least expect a change to be possible. Each woman is seeking her own true self and a freedom of their past they were not expecting to receive. It’s in this honesty that Conklin performs the best visually, as she uncovers the nibblings of the human spirit as evoked through the emotional shiftings of her two protagonists. Reading through The House Girl you gather the sense that the story itself had an equally powerful effect on its writer. And, I suppose that begs to ask the question, “Are stories written by their writers solely, or are stories evoked out of a seed of a story that alights in a writer’s mind as needing to be told?”

Inspired to Share: Ms. Conklin talks about her journey towards publishing The House Girl, and how like Lina, she was a lawyer originally but technically still feels in her heart she is still a lawyer. Her novel started as a seed of an idea and developed into a novel. I must have tapped into this rather intuitively as it was true! I found it interesting how the slave doctor catapulted her muse to follow where the story was leading her. As you listen to her experiences as a litigator as it cross-compares to her life as a writer, she has a fascinating beginning to her writing career. Research and writing as a litigator was a natural progression for Conklin to become a novelist. I find this most intriguing, as I hadn’t realised how much research and writing goes into being a litigator! One of the more compelling things she discloses is how she became a wordsmith of the mid-to-late 1800s by keeping a journal of words she had read inside letters of the time. I appreciated her speaking about the aspect of ‘freedom’, as I have oft believed myself that true freedom lies in the simplicity. She loved the short story format but never thought she could create a novel! She happily surprised herself. I highly recommend taking the time to see the interview in full!

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Tara Conklin Interview by the Pacific Northwest Writers Association

on Bill Kenower [Author, Magazine Editor] Channel

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The “The House Girl” Virtual Book Tour Roadmap:

  1. 5 November: Review @ Read Lately
  2. 7 November: Review @ A Bookish Affair
  3. 11 November: @ Books in the Burbs
  4. 12 November: Review @ Jorie Loves a Story
  5. 13 November: @ Peppermint PhD
  6. 14 November: @ Lavish Bookshelf
  7. 18 November: @ Olduvai Reads
  8. 19 November: @ BoundbyWords
  9. 20 November: @ Book-alicious Mama
  10. 26 November: @ A Bookish Way of Life

I hope to be a regular tour hostess with:

TLC Book Toursuntil then, check up my upcoming Bookish Events Featured on JLAS!

[*NOTE: Any and all purchase links that are attached to SoundCloud are not affiliated with Jorie Loves A Story.]
{SOURCES: Cover art of “The House Girl” as well as Tara Conklin’s photograph, and the logo badge for TLC Book Tours were all provided by TLC Book Tours and used with permission. The author interview by PNWA / Author magazine as well as the audio excerpt of “The House Girl” by Tara Conklin via SoundCloud had either URL share links or coding which made it possible to embed this media portal to this post, and I thank them for the opportunity to share more about this novel and the author who penned it.  Blog tour badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2013.

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Posted Tuesday, 12 November, 2013 by jorielov in ARC | Galley Copy, Art History, Artist's Proof, Artwork Provenance, Author Interview, Blog Tour Host, Book Browse, Civil Rights, Debut Author, Debut Novel, Equality In Literature, Fathers and Daughters, First Impressions, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Pre-Civil War, Soundcloud, The Deep South, Time Slip, TLC Book Tours, Underground Railroad