Format: Hardcover

+Blog Book Tour+ A Paris Apartment by Michelle Gable : A #histfic narrative wrapped up in the mystery of art & antiques

Posted Sunday, 5 October, 2014 by jorielov A Paris Apartment, A Thomas Donne Book, Michelle Gable, St. Martin's Press 6 Comments

A Paris Apartment by Michelle Gable

Published By: Minotaur Books (@MinotaurBooks), (a Thomas Donne book)
imprints of St. Martin’s Publishing Group, which is now a part of MacMillian Publishers
Official Author Websites: Site | @MGableWriter | Facebook

Available Formats: Hardback, Ebook

Converse via: #AParisApartment & #FranceBT

Acquired Book By: I was selected to be a tour stop on the “A Paris Apartment” virtual book tour through France Book Tours. I received a complimentary copy of the book direct from the publisher St. Martin’s Press, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Inspired to Read:

Somewhere in my wanderings on Twitter recently in the bookish realms I frequent, this particular novel came up in a conversation! Then, if I am remembering correctly it was broached in the book blogosphere (of which I am also a participant), so you could say, my interest has become piqued!

I believe I also came across this book not just in Shelf Awareness but on another bookish site recently, as I remember my musings when I first read the premise! To take a real-life mystery and purport it into a fiction telling of ‘what could have been’ I think was a smashing idea on your behalf! I love when writers dig into the realm between fact & fiction, as much as a mystery which involves around art and antiques. Within the silence and the hours in-between what is known and what needs to be found is good folly for a story to inhabit as it allows your lead character to grow and seek what they are intuitively striving to locate as well.

As you can gather from my initial reactions on behalf of A Paris Apartment, I was quite excited about the prospect of not only reading the story but in the realisation of what the story involves! I had contacted the author directly in April of 2014 as there was a bookaway through Shelf Awareness inasmuch as she was visiting #LitChat for a bookish topical discussion that I was quite keen on attending. This was one of those rare moments where everything felt as thought it were set to rights and serendipitously aligning to work out quite well. I have appreciated each and every writer I have become introduced too through #LitChat, as much as I appreciate the ability to write personal notes to the authors who host bookaways through Shelf Awareness, as I love making personal connections to the writers I am finding myself encouraged to read. It brings the book industry closer to home and it allows the writers to get to know their readers a bit as far as who is keen to see their books in print and who is itching to read them once they are released. I find it to be quite the lovely circle of positivity and creative acceptance of the living arts.

What struck me the most about this particular novel is how remarkable the backstory set within its perimeters truly sounded as you delve into the make-up of the circumstances of the ‘apartment’ in question. Or rather, I ought to be saying ‘the flat’ in question!

My singular regret is that I had to postpone my tour stop until I recovered from a horrid stomach flu and by having the hours dissolved off the clock, I had to forfeit my opportunity to interview the author. I was so chuffed it had worked out I could interview her and then, as the fates so happened to align I missed the chance afterall.

A Paris Apartment
by Michelle Gable
Source: Author via France Book Tours

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER!

Bienvenue à Paris!

When April Vogt’s boss tells her about an apartment in the ninth arrondissement that has been discovered after being shuttered for the past seventy years, the Sotheby’s continental furniture specialist does not hear the words “dust” or “rats” or “decrepit.” She hears Paris. She hears escape.

Once in France, April quickly learns the apartment is not merely some rich hoarder’s repository. Beneath the cobwebs and stale perfumed air is a goldmine, and not because of the actual gold (or painted ostrich eggs or mounted rhinoceros horns or bronze bathtub). First, there’s a portrait by one of the masters of the Belle Epoque, Giovanni Boldini. And then there are letters and journals written by the very woman in the painting, Marthe de Florian. These documents reveal that she was more than a renowned courtesan with enviable decolletage. Suddenly April’s quest is no longer about the bureaux plats and Louis-style armchairs that will fetch millions at auction. It’s about discovering the story behind this charismatic woman.

It’s about discovering two women, actually.

With the help of a salty (and annoyingly sexy) Parisian solicitor and the courtesan’s private diaries, April tries to uncover the many secrets buried in the apartment. As she digs into Marthe’s life, April can’t help but take a deeper look into her own. Having left behind in the States a cheating husband, a family crisis about to erupt, and a career she’s been using as the crutch to simply get by, she feels compelled to sort out her own life too. When the things she left bubbling back home begin to boil over, and Parisian delicacies beyond flaky pâtisseries tempt her better judgment, April knows that both she and Marthe deserve happy finales.

Whether accompanied by croissants or champagne, this delectable debut novel depicts the Paris of the Belle Epoque and the present day with vibrant and stunning allure. Based on historical events, Michelle Gable’s A Paris Apartment will entertain and inspire, as readers embrace the struggles and successes of two very unforgettable women.

Read about Marthe de Florian

Genres: Biographical Fiction, Contemporary (Modern) Fiction (post 1945), Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

Places to find the book:

Published by A Thomas Donne Book

on 22nd April, 2014

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 384

Author Biography:

Michelle Gable is a writer and also a mom, wife, financial executive, sports-obsessed maniac (Go Chargers! Go Aztecs!), Southern California native, barre class fiend, tennis player, and card-carrying member of the Chickasaw Nation.

She grew up in sunny San Diego and attended The College of William & Mary, where she majored in accounting as most aspiring writers do. Throughout a career that started in public accounting and then moved to private equity, then investment banking, and ultimately to the head of FP&A for a publicly-traded software company, Michelle continued to write. And write and write. Her first novel {A Paris Apartment}was released on April 22, 2014, her second scheduled for Spring 2016.

Michelle currently resides in Cardiff by the Sea, California, with her husband, two daughters, and one lazy cat.

A catacomb cache of antiquity and art:

As we first cross the threshold of a locked away apartment in a section of Paris which begets instant recognition, we step properly inside April’s shoes — seeing everything her eyes drink in and with a deep appreciation for finding items of art once thought to either be lost or nonexistent altogether. As I lamented on my ruminations on behalf of Lost in Thought, I have always been a bit piqued in apt fascination for the history of antiques and the items from estates cast back into the world via emporiums and boutiques where everyone can find something they fancy to collect or gather for their own homes. There is a particular keen attraction to having a sense of a living legacy of a singular life attached to the item, as a vehicle of immortality in the sense that someone’s essence was entwined with the piece. Touch is a sense most convicting for our sensory perceptions – it allows us a tangible connection to what cannot be seen but rather felt and thereby internalised on a deeper level of awareness. There was a true catacomb cache of antiquity and art held within the walls of the apartment time and history were kept unawares in knowing about; and within that cache held a curiosity of a person not easily understood nor quenched once her life was brought out into the open.

My Review of A Paris Apartment:

As soon as April mentioned being in need of ‘catching a redeye’ my mind flickered backwards into my own past whereupon I stranded myself in the Pacific Northwest simply due to a mild curiosity over controlled rock climbing walls & a certain outdoors expedition store called REI. I daresay I was always an adventurous lass, but to forfeit my return flight and had to opt instead for the redeye — wells, there are times where I question my own sanity! My reverie continued whilst observing her ‘techniques’ to pinch out every spare inch of her suitcase for ‘necessities’ she’d need on her holiday; the memories of my own ingenuity of achieving the same impossible task left me inside of a smirk!

April’s fragmented life is in a reckless disarray filt with disillusion and an honest sense of being caught in flux; betwixt the present and the future whilst unresolved about the past. Her life is a fitting juxtaposition to the apartment by which she is hired to sort and recover what has been left behind to be found. Her emotional health is a frayed rope of nerves, and whilst she finds herself drawn into the legacy of Boldini and of Madame Florian, it nearly felt as though she were searching for a resounding clarity that would give credence and enlightenment to her own life.

The time shift sequences giving us a jolt of Madame de Florian’s life as she transcribed it down into her diaries was a rare and exquisite treat. Yet one of the surprising twists of everyday life for me in the modern area of the story, is when it was disclosed that dog walkers do not pick up after their animals have taken care of business. It is a well-known fact that no one can walk their dogs (or in some rare cases their cats) without the courtesy of removing what is left behind for someone not to unexpectedly walk through it. I had no idea that Paris has a problem similar to Venice as far as a stench of foulness emitting out of a situation that is containable. It gives a new dimension of awareness I had not yet stumbled across and had me left wondering how you can truly appreciate walking the streets if there are more little ‘surprises’ to be found along the sidewalks? I agree with April on this note on how indifferent it would be to have the joy of being in the city replaced by a bit of furrowed discontempt of such an everyday difference of living.

I felt the energy of the first half of the novel started to muddle towards the middle bits, as April’s suspicious nature towards her husband’s past infidelity was starting to grow a bit old as the old ‘dialogue’ continued to play out. I think it would have been best if she had been more honest with herself that she had already taken an exit out of her marriage. Although, truth to life, perhaps she was not yet aware of what she wanted and thereby had this disconnection growing larger between her and her husband simply due to distance and lack of direction to take next. Even Madame de Florian took a bit of a backseat, and the joy of the art discovered in the apartment ended up being bogged down by bureaucracy and red tape. The further I read into the story, the more crude the humour ended up becoming or rather the more crude the direct references were to the story’s internal threads. I was a bit aghast to find this happening, as foresaid the beginning had such a sprite of energy and sophistication, and watching everything start to derail before my eyes was not something I enjoyed. If I were to be honest, it felt as though there were two halves of a whole and they were not equally connected.

The cheeky humour and the intricacies of Michelle Gable’s writing style:

Gable has an intrinsic method of revealing the well-established stigmas attached to Americans whilst on holiday in France as much as she has a clairvoyant way of using cheeky humour to establish the short tolerance Americans feel in return. The French have always had a certain level of discontempt for Americans, as even I have found this to be threaded through conversations during intermittent connections I’ve had with them, yet what always struck me the most off-character about the whole absurdity of this tension between the countries is how genuine Americans love France and everything most decidedly French! And, for those of us who are of French descent directly, it is a curious stone to overturn. I honestly believe this is due to a disconnection between us: a break down in communication or at the very least an understanding of our different personalities and perceptions of how we live our lives.

Gable allows her American and French characters to respond and react within the perimeters of this well-established awareness between the two cultural divides, yet she always attempts to step out of the stigma and re-align a sense of forward progression.

Fly in the Ointment:

I am not sure why I felt I was awaiting the shoe to drop but call it reader intuition as I had a stirring sense of knowledge the strongest of words would start to trickle out into the enriched descriptive narrative like water snaking out of a busted drain. And, rather unsatisfying to me, of course by page 45 we had to see reveal the one word I despise amongst all others flaunted on display. I truly have yet to find a reason for such inclusions, but on this particular novel’s behalf what felt even more flat is the layers of depth Gable gave to her descriptions.

She breathes words which are not regularly found in Contemporary nor Historical Contemporary Fiction, and somehow the additions of vulgarity felt as though she were depreciating the level of sophistication she started the novel off with at the beginning. In the same sense where April felt vexed when a causal touch or disrespect for the pieces in the apartment were being unceremoniously contaminated by carelessness.

These strong words can be blinked out of today’s fiction for my own sake of sanity, as when I find wicked quality on behalf of the story-teller I am walking a line betwixt wanting to recommend the work for the level of literary quality vs shirking away from realising the recommendation is on a work that is inclusive of language I cannot fathom needing being included. I am as indecisive of knowing how best to augment my final thoughts as I had been after concluding “I Shall Be Near to You”.

I wish I could say the saving grace within this particular tome of narrative voice is that the vulgarity was as intermittent as a wayward fly at a baseball game, however, they were bent on making such striking appearances as to remind me why I do not appreciate the surge in love bugs during Autumn! The annoyance level is always on extreme high as try as you might you cannot outwit a love bug deluge.

On a separate note, I felt the French words writ straight into the dialogue sequences would have felt more second nature to the reader if there were (translated English words) running counterpoint to the French. I positively love when language is used as a vocal representation of setting and of a time of era, yet when all I have is a language opposite of the one I natively speak, all I can do at best is give a smile of a nod to the words themselves without a proper sense of what is actually being said. As a for instance, if one wanted to say “Autumn is such a proper renewal of spirited joy after a languishing of Summer.” Why not write it like this: (or a variant therein)

"L'automne est un tel renouvellement correct de joie vive après une langueur de l'été."  (Autumn is such a proper renewal of spirited joy after a languishing of Summer.)  she expressed in full measure of unexpected happiness.

I used an online French / English Translation app and thereby am not responsible if the French to English has acceptable loss of error. I simply wanted to convey how frustrated I felt whilst caught up in the French expressions without an English translation in-text. This is not a quote from the novel either – I crafted the entire exchange on the fly so to speak.

I also noted that whenever we were re-visiting Madame de Florian’s life through her diary of letters, the language of English she used was American rather than British, and that was a unique observation for me. I realise most works of American novels in historical fiction do not encompass British English in preference of historical accuracy but I am always struck at a loss to understand why they do not? She wouldn’t be using the spelling of ‘endeavor’ for instance as she would have writ it as ‘endeavour’. It is almost as though the historical points of view are translated yet the language bits are not; a bit of a wench in the wheel to me.

I would have given a celebratory nod of realism had the modern bits [focused on April] had solidified her speaking vernacular of American English with French in-text translations of English; fused counter-current with Madame de Florian’s diaries writ in British English with overlays of French (with in-text translations as well).

Read an Excerpt of the Novel:

{Provided by Issuu.com}

Virtual Road Map for “A Paris Apartment” Blog Tour:

A special notation at the end of my post is dedicated to the writers like Ms. Gable & Ms. Alexander (of Dare to Kiss who supports a PTSD charity), who give proceeds of their novels to charity, in this particular instance Ms. Gable has a rotation of charitable organisations she is contributing towards each month there are net proceeds from A Paris Apartment. I found the list on her website and have linked the charities for easy reference to click-through & discover more about each of them.

MAY: The Chloe Nichols Foundation
JUNE: Wounded Warrior Project
JULY: Monarch School (San Diego)
AUGUST: Help4HD International
SEPTEMBER: Safe Horizon

I have been supporting the Wounded Warrior Project in small ways and one day hope to strengthen my support to make a larger impact, as I find it a difficult pill to swallow that we are not taking care of our returning servicemen & women. The crisis of our Veterans is knitted close to my heart and it is an on-going mission of mine to help find ways to improve their lives; not only through this charity but the outreach Hire Heroes USA as well. I have been supporting the troops through Soldiers’ Angels since 2011.

I was hoping to find an organisation and/or charity that would help the homeless stand stronger and put their lives together through positive hope and obtainable goals; seeking a footprint towards a stronger future. I am blessed to have found the Monarch School on this list as I think this is a concept that needs to be taken nationwide.

Likewise, through the 8 years I devouted to watching Law & Order in my twenties, I became especially keen on the charity of Mariska Hargitay : The Joyful Heart Foundation. As much as watching the mission behind No More flourish and take root. Women have always been rock solid innovators, and every step of the way the more we all choose to reach out to those in need of assistance, empathy, hope, and a bit of joy — we endeavour our own spirits to be lifted up in universal love.

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

on my Bookish Events page!

Please take note of the Related Articles as they were hand selected due to being of cross-reference importance in relation to this book review. This applies to each post on my blog where you see Related Articles underneath the post. Be sure to take a moment to acknowledge the further readings which are offered.

I positively *love!* comments in the threads below each of my posts, kindly know that I appreciate each thought you want to share with me and all the posts on my blog are open to new comments & commentary! Short or long, I appreciate the time you spent to leave behind a note of your visit! Return again soon!

{SOURCES: Cover art of “A Paris Apartment”, book synopsis, author photograph of Michelle Gable, author biography, and the tour host badge were all provided by France Book Tours and used with permission. The Excerpt of “A Paris Apartment’ on Issuu 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. France Book Tours badge created by Jorie in Canva.}

Related Articles:

The Complete Works of Giovanni Boldini – (giovanniboldini.org)

Madame de Florian’s Abandoned Apartment – (anothermag.com)

House Tour the Secret Paris Apartment of Madame De Florian – (blog.decoratorsnotebook.co.uk)

Suspended in Time – (blogofthecourtier.com)

The ‘live reading’ tweets I shared as I read & reviewed “A Paris Apartment”:

{ favourite & Re-tweet if inspired to share }

#weekendreads on #JLASblog: A Stitch in Time by Amanda James (@akjames61) & A Paris Apartment by @MGableWriter #nextreads in #fiction :)

— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) October 4, 2014

#amreading my 2nd #WeekendReads selection: #AParisApartment by Michelle Gable, of which I cannot wait to dig into as I’ve itched to read it!
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) October 5, 2014

I’m currently reading A Paris Apartment on @riffle. Have you read it? http://t.co/2RDYzCIsvx

— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) October 5, 2014

.@MGableWriter & @SBAlex_author #Authors who give proceeds of their #book to #charity are truly phenomenal philanthropists inspiring change
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) October 5, 2014

#amreading #AParisApartment whilst appreciating ‘little touches of finesse’ in regards to ‘elemental designs’ of the styling of its pages :)

— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) October 5, 2014

@KylieKerosene Did you see the interior pages of #AParisApartment?! I was properly gobsmacked in euphoric happiness! It is ‘de chic’ :) <3!
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) October 5, 2014

#amreading #AParisApartment continuing from whence I left off – heart of gratitude for spontaneity convos from last night; sparked by #book!

— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) October 5, 2014

♫ Scott Alan (@ScottAlanNet) Listen @cdbaby http://t.co/LJv4db4L92 | The song “Always/Goodnight” befit my reading of #AParisApartment Chap9
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) October 5, 2014

♫ Air Review (@airreview) Listen @cdbaby http://t.co/hn20xcNTas | Track “America’s Son” infused me w/ hope as I cont’d w/ #AParisApartment

— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) October 5, 2014

Comments on Twitter:

@JLovesAStory @MGableWriter @SBAlex_author I do think this lovely and would like to write a novella for this purpose.

— Carol McGrath (@carolmcgrath) October 5, 2014

@carolmcgrath Stories have an evoking presence in the beauty of their visceral empowerment; twicefold w/charity @MGableWriter @SBAlex_author
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) October 5, 2014

@JLovesAStory so now I shall have to do it when I finish The Betrothed Sister. I have a few long short stories I can develop into a novella.

— Carol McGrath (@carolmcgrath) October 5, 2014

@JLovesAStory @SBAlex_author thank you so much! I’ve loved doing it…surprisingly fun when I get to calculate at month end. :)
— Michelle Gable (@MGableWriter) October 5, 2014

@MGableWriter @SBAlex_author I wrote a special s/o paragraph about your #charity work attached to #AParisApartment on my #review #amreading

— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) October 5, 2014

The best blessing for me tonight as I read A Paris Apartment is the beautiful happenstance conversation I had with a British Historical fiction author, Ms. McGrath who is a close personal friend to two lovely story-tellers I have not only featured on Jorie Loves A Story but cannot stop talking about their stories to anyone who fancies the same types of narratives as I do! I am referring to Ms. Liz Harris (A Bargain Struck & The Road Back) and Ms. Jenny Barden (The Lost Duchess). Our conversation is inside my feeds on Twitter as I stopped copying them over as they became our own convo independent of Ms. Gable’s novel. I was wicked happy in another regard – now that I have my landing page set up, I can start commenting once more on the English Historical Fiction Author’s Blog as oft as I can the Heroes, Heroines, & History Blog! Champion! All is never quite as lost as we first fear!

I truly believe in what I tweeted just shy of 2am:

@carolmcgrath Yes, truly — I believe #writers have a way of finding each other & the twitterverse & book blogosphere helps unite us all :)
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) October 5, 2014

Posted Sunday, 5 October, 2014 by jorielov in 21st Century, Adulterous Affair, Antiques, Art History, Artwork Provenance, Biographical Fiction & Non-Fiction, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, Book Cover | Notation on Design, Clever Turns of Phrase, Courtesan & Cocottes, Debut Author, Debut Novel, Disillusionment in Marriage, Fly in the Ointment, France, France Book Tours, French Literature, Geographically Specific, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Life Shift, Literary Fiction, Madame de Florian, Passionate Researcher, Post-911 (11th September 2001), Shelf Awareness, Spontaneous Convos Inspired by Book, Time Shift, Twitterland & Twitterverse Event, Vulgarity in Literature, Women's Fiction, Wordsmiths & Palettes of Sage

+Blog Book Tour+ Vintage by Susan Gloss

Posted Monday, 22 September, 2014 by jorielov A Vintage Affair, HarperCollins Publishers, Isobel Wolff, Susan Gloss, Vintage, William Morrow 8 Comments

Vintage by Susan Gloss

one of The Débutante Ball bloggers of 2014 | the Blog & their Tweets

Published By: William Morrow (@WmMorrowBks),
an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (@HarperCollins)

Official Author Websites: Site | @susangloss| Facebook | Etsy Shoppe | Blog
Available Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, Audiobook, & Ebook

Converse via: #Vintage

Acquired Book By:

I was selected to be a tour stop on the “Vintage” virtual book tour through TLC Book Tours. I received a complimentary copy of the book direct from the publisher William Morrow, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

I hadn’t realised my hardback copy of “Vintage” was damaged until I started to read the novel itself, where pieces of the pages started to rip apart and shred right off individual pages of the novel. I found the culprit but could not do anything to stop it from continuing to happen as on page 155 all the pages were glued together! A sticky substance had attached itself to the top of the pages and therefore, try as I might to be gentle & delicate – the pages would not yield nor would they budge without causing them to rip either in full chunks or strips. Of course the worst part is that page 156 & 157 were glued *together!* and by pulling them apart I lost whole words, sentences, and saw all the ink obscured completely! :( I grieved for this novel at that point. I had tucked it’s story into my heart and although I was breathing in love with each page I had turnt, the novel simply was starting to fade away from me due to ‘glue’. When this happened, I knew I would lose the beautiful pace of what I was reading,… how could I not with ‘whole pages’ stuck to each other that could not be undone without ripping the book apart? I had to stop pulling page 156 – it was just too heart-wrenching. Part of the page was so thin in the upper paragraphs you could see right through the paper! :( I ended up missing an epic fight between April & Violet as pieces of the top pages of 158 & 160 ripped apart so I could start Chapter 15.

I decided not to let this deter my reading enjoyment but it proved to be quite of a challenge as it is the first time I received a book whose damage was quite literally making it difficult to read the story. Prior to page 155 each page I read had this unique slant to it, as it wouldn’t release from the top inside binding; therefore, I read this in a very creative way all the way around!

The hardest pill to swallow is that when I read novels which are new when they reach my hands, I’m the kind of gentle reader who can read the book without leaving a trace I’ve read the story. No bent pages in the upper corners (I use bookmarks), no writing inside the book (I couldn’t even do that with textbooks!), no eating of food that could transfer through my fingers (you’d be surprised what people eat whilst reading library books!), and I barely arch the spines in order to view the words on the page! Not only for hardbacks but the paperbacks — my ChocLit novels & my William Morrow P.S. Edition paperbacks are a good cases in point; they do not show any evidence I read them in this way because I treasure keeping books in a condition that honours their texts. Even when I purchase second-hand novels and non-fiction books I’m always trying to keep the stability of the book in its current condition.

This is wretching experience for a book lover whose own heart was bleeding with the characters and wanted to know all of their thoughts without skipping over pages stuck together without any hope of being undone. And, sadly I haven’t had the pleasure of taking book binding lessons and book recovery classes to know how to fix this if there were a plausible and affordable way to undo the damage. My reading slowed down considerably as I had to peel each page as best as I could to read the rest of the novel. I will omit mentioning how long it took for me to free the pages in order to read them. The top of Chapter 22 really suffered: it looked like someone took a bite out of the page!

Inspired to Read:

I had an impression of an idea what I would find within the pages of Vintage, as I devoured A Vintage Affair by Isobel Wolff via my local library a few years prior to when I first learnt about this new release by Susan Gloss. I fancy stories which are centered around the history and enriched life of clothes and the personal items that occupy our hours alongside the time in which we walk our path on Earth. I oft wondered about the secret histories of second-hand copies of novels could speak inside of a whisper of my ear and the same can be said for vintage clothing boutiques who re-sell clothes previously worn yet gently returned back into the wild for someone else to find them. There is such a hearty treasure to seeking clothes from previous generations, and I for one, am a happy hearted vintage clothes shopper! Mind you, I haven’t gone into the true posh boutiques yet, but the re-sell shoppes for everyday living are quite splendid!

I love the textural experience of wandering from row to row and hanger to hanger, sorting through the ingredients of the clothes (in my particular case, avoiding most synthetics), and noting the styles I am finding being offered. I love the fact that you can pull shirts, skirts, dresses, and bottoms straight-off the rack and know for a start your not about to see anyone soon wear the same ensemble. We’ve become a bit cookie-cutter in our society, and although I cannot fathom why everyone wants to dress like everyone else, I’ve always celebrated individual style and a personal awareness of what types of clothes and articles of fashion make me wicked happy to have them alight in my closet!

I love pulling from different styles of thought, mixing in my own take on an old trend and/or re-inventing a style that is uniquely my own by fusing pieces that might not seem alike but smashingly look brilliant in combination! I love a comfortable fit, I avoid high heels like the plague (they are seriously not a method of wellness for foot), and I like finding a nodding towards the past by finding pieces that match an eloquence of femininity that is nearly all but lost in today’s world of fashion. I’m vintage but I’m alternatively creative in my choices, I love Bohemian for instance, but I like to add a bit of funk to my colour palette and the alternative styles that might be on the fringes of punk. I love cargo pants but I like a nice comfortable pair of washed denim jeans. The accessories are always a happy delight as generally speaking in any second-hand clothing shoppe or boutique, your bound to find estate sale keepers alongside costume jewelry sparklers! The true mirth of joy is being able to go shoppe to shoppe and find pieces of your spirit drifting in through the clothes which speak to you to wear!

I am not sure why I never came round to borrowing Vintage from my local library, but because I hadn’t, it allowed me to be on the blog tour!

Quite simply, how could I not love a novel entitled Vintage?

When it pertains to clothes and a vintage sensibility of style?!

And. shh! One of my secret places to observe wicked alternative fashion is ETSY!

Rock on, dear hearts! Be uniquely defined by what enlivens your own spirit!

Vintage
by Susan Gloss
Source: Publisher via TLC Book Tours

A small-town girl with a flair for fashion, Violet Turner had always dreamed of owning a shop like Hourglass Vintage. But when faced with the possibility of losing the store to an unscrupulous developer, she realizes that despite her usual self-reliance she cannot save it all by herself.

Eighteen-year-old April Morgan is nearly five months along in an unplanned pregnancy when her hasty engagement is broken. When she returns the perfect vintage wedding dress to Violet’s shop, she forges an unexpected bond with women who won’t let her give up on her dreams.

Betrayed by her husband, Amithi Singh begins selling off her vibrant Indian silk dresses. After decades of housekeeping and parenting a daughter who rejects her traditional ways, she fears her best days are behind her . . . until she discovers an outlet for her creativity with a needle and thread.

Vintage is a charming tale of possibility, of finding renewal, love, and hope when we least expect it.

Genres: Contemporary (Modern) Fiction (post 1945), Women's Fiction

Places to find the book:

Published by William Morrow

on 25th March, 2014

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 320

Read an Excerpt of the Novel:

Excerpt from Vintage by Susan Gloss by WilliamMorrowBooks

View this document on Scribd

Author Biography:

Susan Gloss is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Wisconsin Law School. When she’s not writing fiction, Susan can be found working as an attorney, blogging at GlossingOverIt, or hunting for vintage treasures for her Etsy shop, Cleverly Curated. She lives with her family in Madison, Wisconsin.

A Triptych of Insight:

Violet, April, and Amithi (along with Betsy who plays a supporting role as much as Lane) are the key characters in Vintage, who nestle into your heart as you read their stories unfold. What I found so striking about this particular story is the differences in their ages and the differences of where they are in their lives. April is just starting out on her own path as she’s a teenager on the fringes of college and motherhood, whereas Violet has lived quite a life of woe intermixed with the happier moments she carved out for herself in the world of business. Amithi is the classic housewife whose illusions of a happy marriage are shattered and irrevocably set her course on a new line of sight. They provide a triptych of insight into how life shapes us each day that we breathe and accept to take in the new experiences that cross our path. Whether or not we react well or unkind to how our lives change, it is our own attitude of how we approach life that can determine how much we can enjoy and how much we can appreciate the journey.

Gloss shifts backwards and forwards through the story alighting on chapters which highlight the specific observations and emotions of each of the three women as you soak into Vintage. This unique point-of-view lends itself a unique lens to get into the heart of the novel, which I had originally fell in love with whilst reading Rosamunde Pilcher’s The Shell Seekers as a teenager.

My Review of Vintage:

The name of the vintage shoppe inside the novel Vintage is Hourglass Vintage, a beckoning title of alluring to how time may be of the essence or a direct factor to off-set the harmony of the characters inside its pages. I like how writers choose names to give their readers a curiosity about what they will find as they read along and discover more of where the narrative is about to take them. Half the time I worry I might read a bit too much into the selections of names, but oft-times I find myself realising writers have a heap in common with songwriters; each etch into their creative works a tell; a signal left behind for someone to recognise and knowing feel museful.

Violet is the proprietor who happily loves to lead an unconventional life despite the fact she has very traditional (and quite conventional) aspirations she wants to fulfill. I never understood how some women feel that if you wanted to be a Mum your life automatically becomes traditional: white picket fence, two story house, traditional job, and your children play soccer whilst you drive a mini-van. There are a lot of stereotypes and stigmas that I think cloud over the quite curiously wicked alternative, non-traditional, and unconventional families who thrive in the creative arts and/or create their own independence by pursuing a career that matches their passion. There are so many different roads to travel down, I am never certain why we all feel pigeon holed into one or two. Even motherhood is not hinged to marriage, as so many women tend to believe as well.

April is at a crossroads in her life as she is attempting to sort out how to attend college whilst facing the reality of being withchild; cast alone in the world since her Mum died her sole support system is anchored by a scholarship which is run by people who genuinely care and want to help her. She’s at that unique spot in life where you have to make grown-up choices and realise somewhere inside you there is a well of strength you never knew you had. I like how she has a strong head on her shoulders, embracing a bit of no nonsense carefree attitude when her hormones are not affecting her emotional sensibility and a rock of determination that defies her circumstances. She’s a bit caught in-between childhood and adulthood, stepping as brave as she can into where the future has led her but unsure of how she’s going to get to where she wants to be.

Amithi is in transition of realising her daughter has no interest in maintaining family traditions nor in keeping close ties to her extended family in India. Amithi did not have the same freedom of choice for her marriage or her life when she was the same age of her daughter, and it is how she is shifting through this transitional period of her life that endeared me to her as a character. She was raised in a traditional Indian home and had hoped part of her heritage and culture would have affected her daughter, yet each time she thought she made a bit of progress the daughter would rebel and walk a different path away from her parent’s background.

The beauty of reading Vintage is the allure of second chances and second beginnings when life at first doesn’t seem to take you down the path you’ve been wanting to walk. All three women have a unique path in life they are walking as we meet them in the story and all of their lifepaths are starting to collide into each other as well. They are three extraordinarily different women, but at the heart of who they are they are incredibly alike. The story takes on a time slip arc as each new kernel of insight into each of the women’s past is revealed; we go from the present into a slip of the past as a flirting glimpse into how each of them was moulded into who they are now.

On the writing style of Susan Gloss and why I love her approach to this novel:

Outside of my flexing of a disparaging opinion on language in the ‘fly in the ointment’, my readers I believe know by now that on occasion I can overlook these blemishes and blights to see the story outside of the wrinkling of my nose. I cannot always overlook language, especially if it is threaded into each or every other paragraph, but if its sprinkled in such a way as to remind me of flies on a picnic; I become invested in the story itself. What I appreciated the most about Gloss’s style to tell the story is her infusion of using the time slip arc, to allow us the added benefit of seeing Violet, April, and Amithi as a younger version of themselves — writ right in line with the present day goings-on. It is a unique vehicle to carry-on the unknown elements of each of their past, whilst giving the reader the breadth of what makes them who they are in the present. I love time slips as much as I love life shift narrative arcs (and I believe this qualifies in triplicate) or time travel sequences. They give added dimension outside the general scope of where a story fits inside its sub-genre and happily allows us to soak in information in a way that feels as though we are conversing with the characters ourselves.

Fly in the Ointment:

Recently whilst I was reading Someone Else’s Love Story and I Shall Be Near to You, I had mentioned how finding such brass language inside novels being released was growing tiresome. I must contend, my disdain hasn’t altered now that I’ve picked up Vintage, as I am seriously starting to wonder how to advocate for word usage changes and how to get back into the heart of how to write a novel without dropping words which singe ears and wrinkle brows. I read a lot of heart-warming fiction, including the YA novel The Strength of Ballerinas yesterday which begs to reason most novels can hold their salt without abrasive words flittering into the pages at the most inconvenient times. I am starting to wonder if I am amongst the few who uses her words to express her emotions and her thoughts in a way in which does not yield to the gutter.

And, why is strong language used in such a strong way in the start of a novel if only to disappear to a near blink of omission lateron? Why include it at all if the pace and style fit so well without it being added? I am always so puzzled by how language and vulgar words are being used in novels. It is nearly as if you’d have to remind yourself this novel *had!* abrasive words in it as after awhile they are simply ‘gone’. At least until they unexpectedly re-arrive back into the plot during an argument. Sighs.

I’ve said my peace but I wish I had a slice of apple pie. This novel is a comforting Southern slice of bravery in the midst of life being upturnt unexpectedly, yet it takes place in the North; strangely for me the location never felt like Madison, Wisconsin (I ought to know I’ve been there) but rather somewhere down South, like Charleston or Greenville South Carolina. A place where the beauty of embracing a vintage lifestyle and the clothing boutiques like Hourglass Vintage would be happily inter-spaced in-between the more modern shoppes of fashion. I simply didn’t get the vibe this was a completely Mid-Western story nor did I feel it ‘fit’ Madison. Even though I realise the author lives there, when I visited the city I walked away with an entirely different point-of-view.

Before anyone asks me:

The reason I didn’t seek this novel out at my local library is because ever since Thursday night and the wee hours of Friday morning my neighbour has been in the hospital – at first under pre-caution for pneumonia (in the ER), then downgraded to bronchitis (after admitted), and then, today due to complications of the antibiotics and treatments she is being held over a week before being moved into a nursing home / rehab center. I’ve been completely distracted by going back and forth to the hospital and attempting to keep up with my reading & blog schedules. She’s more like an Aunt than a neighbour, so I honestly didn’t even think of seeking a different copy to read for the review, as my focus has been on her and my family, as there are other things going on personally at the same time which have distracted me as well. (I briefly mentioned a bit of this on my post about Early Decision) To be honest, it didn’t even dawn on me until about an hour ago the hours I lost today due to a terrible lightning storm (in which I visited my neighbour as I knew going on the computer was out of the question to write this review) and the time it took to pull the pages apart — as my eyes drew to the clock worried I’d be late in posting that a library copy would have saved me a bit of grief. Of course, my library is not the one that is open 10 minutes before 9pm! These are the moments you make lemonade out of lemons and carry-on.

Despite the faulty copy I received, I was overjoyed it was a hardback edition, as I was only expecting a paperback copy. I’m still joyful I have a hardback copy of Susan Gloss’s debut novel — I loved watching her and the other Debs at the blog take their turns in the bookish spotlights during the year, and it was an honour to host my ‘second’ Deb as I hosted Ms. Heather Webb (for Becoming Josephine) in January. I am enthused I have a whole new year of Debs to get to know and greet into the literary fold! My copy of Vintage is worn in and loved all the same — just like the beautiful clothes featured in the novel itself.

This blog tour stop was courtesy of TLC Book Tours:

click-through to follow the blogosphere tour:

See what I am hosting next:

I positively *love!* comments in the threads below each of my posts, and I have happily made sure that I could reacquire the WP Comments where you can leave me a comment by using: WP (WordPress), Twitter, Facebook, Google+, & Email! Kindly know that I appreciate each thought you want to share with me and all the posts on my blog are open to new comments & commentary! Short or long, I appreciate the time you spent to leave behind a note of your visit! Return again soon!

{SOURCES: Cover art of “Vintage”, author photograph, book synopsis and the tour badge were all provided by TLC Book Tours and used with permission. Blog Tour badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Bookish Events badge created by Jorie in Canva. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Buy links on Scribd excerpt are not affiliated with Jorie Loves A Story. Book Excerpt was able to be embedded due to codes provided by Scribd.}

The ‘live reading’ tweets I shared as I read & reviewed “Vintage”:

{ favourite & Re-tweet if inspired to share }

#amreading Susan Gloss’s #debutnovel #VINTAGE whilst #blogging my reactions as I turn the pages! :) My #review is later today! #fashion :)

— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) September 22, 2014

I am so loving how lightning storms are interfering with my #bookblogger joy of reviewing #novels this Summer! Bring on Autumn w/o rain! :)
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) September 22, 2014

Love how #VINTAGE (the #novel) has this alluring Southern charm about it; it feels so much more like #SouthernLit than a Wisconsinite locale

— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) September 22, 2014

Okay That was seriously #beyondyum & a lovely #randomjoy of a food surprise! :) Pasta & ground meat w/spinach & a sinful slice of cheesecake
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) September 22, 2014

.@TLCBookTours I just finished #amreading VINTAGE by Susan Gloss — oh my! I positively *loved!* how this story ends http://t.co/0kGHe4UfWK!

— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) September 23, 2014

I just recommended Vintage: A Novel on @riffle. Check it out. http://t.co/xvlrK1rqbA
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) September 23, 2014

.@susangloss Despite the hurdles I faced #reading #VINTAGE, I felt deeply attached to Violet, April, & Amithi! Powerful #newbook of #fiction

— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) September 23, 2014

.@msheatherwebb so thankful I could host *two!* Debs (@DebutanteBall) in one year! My #review of VINTAGE http://t.co/0kGHe4UfWK @susangloss
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) September 23, 2014

.@WmMorrowBks Not even a damaged #book could stop me from #amreading #VINTAGE by Susan Gloss (@susangloss) http://t.co/0kGHe4UfWK #fiction

— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) September 23, 2014

Posted Monday, 22 September, 2014 by jorielov in 21st Century, Adulterous Affair, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, Book | Novel Extract, Breast Cancer, Cancer Scare, Coming-Of Age, Death, Sorrow, and Loss, Debut Author, Debut Novel, Disillusionment in Marriage, Equality In Literature, Fashion Fiction, Flashbacks & Recollective Memories, Fly in the Ointment, Library Find, Life Shift, Literature of India, Old World Arts & Crafts, Realistic Fiction, Scribd, Second Chance Love, Sewing & Stitchery, Singletons & Commitment, Time Slip, TLC Book Tours, Unexpected Inheritance, Unexpected Pregnancy, Vintage Clothes & Boutiques, Vulgarity in Literature, Women's Right to Choose (Health Care Rights)

+Blog Book Tour+ I Shall Be Near To You by Erin Lindsay McCabe

Posted Tuesday, 16 September, 2014 by jorielov Broadway Books, Crown Publishing Group, Erin Lindsay McCabe, I Shall Be Near To You, Random House Publishing Group 1 Comment

I Shall Be Near To You by Erin Lindsay McCabe

Published By: Broadway Books, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group (@CrownPublishing)

and part of: Penguin Random House (@penguinrandom)

Official Author Websites: Site | @ErinLindsMcCabe| Facebook
Available Formats: Hardcover, Ebook

Converse via: #IShall (main tag), #IShallBeNearToYou

Acquired Book By:

I was selected to be a tour stop on the “I Shall Be Near To You” virtual book tour through TLC Book Tours. I received a complimentary copy of the book direct from the publisher Crown Publishing Group, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Inspired to Read & Excitement Ahead of Time:

The beautiful cover art on the hardback edition I received to review is featured inside the Excerpt by the publisher’s Scribd page featured below my review. I must admit, I appreciate both versions of the cover-art designs, even if I’m a bit partial to the hardback as I think it gives a measure of mystery as to how a woman could hide behind the thin veil of a man’s clothes and walk onto the field of battle; serving her country alongside her husband. The second cover-art which is included on the Book Synopsis is a bit more elusive as to the central core of the story, as it draws you to think of a different thread of context. At least it had for me, as it appeared to be a woman who was caught in the middle of the era of war rather than a woman who joined the fight during the war itself.

I had the pleasure of participating in a Twitter chat ahead of my review posting on the 2nd of September, whereupon I was wrapped up in the excitement of this novel’s release and the joyous mirth of discovering book bloggers & readers who had already felt the inertia of its emotional pull. I was overjoyed being able to participate in a chat dedicated to one of my favourite branches of literature, and for giving me such an incredible start to this blog tour.

I Shall Be Near to You

In I SHALL BE NEAR TO YOU, McCabe introduces us to newlywed Rosetta Wakefield. More accustomed to working as her father’s farmhand and happiest doing what others might call “man’s work,” Rosetta struggles with how to be a good wife to her childhood beau and new husband, Jeremiah. When Jeremiah leaves home to join the Union army, Rosetta finds the only way she can honor Jeremiah is to be with her husband—no matter what..

Cutting off her hair and donning men’s clothing, Rosetta enlists in the army as Private Ross Stone so that she might stand beside her husband. Joining, however, is the easy part, and now Rosetta must not only live and train with her male counterparts as they prepare for imminent battle, but she must also deal with Jeremiah, who is struggling with his “fighting” wife’s presence, not to mention the constant threat of discovery..

In brilliant detail, inspired by the letters of the real Rosetta Wakeman, McCabe offers a riveting look at the day-to-day lives of these secret women fighters as they defied conventions and made their personal contributions to history. Both a tender love story and a hard look at war, I SHALL BE NEAR TO YOU offers a unique exploration of marriage, societal expectations, and the role of women in the Civil War through the lens of a beautifully written novel..

Places to find the book:

on 2nd September, 2014

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 336

Author Biography:

Erin studied literature and history at University of California, Santa Cruz, earned a teaching credential at California State University, Chico, and taught high school English for seven years. Since completing her MFA in Creative Writing at St. Mary’s College of California in 2010, Erin has taught Composition at St. Mary’s College and Butte College. A California native, Erin lives in the Sierra Foothills with her husband, son, and a small menagerie that includes one dog, four cats, two horses, numerous chickens, and three goats.

The [American] Civil War:

I learnt quite a heap about the Civil War whilst I was in high school, except to say, they left out quite a lot of important factors such as women who served their country alongside the men! I think I might have listened a bit closer to the lectures and the discussions, as to me, it was all starting to blur together after two terms of feeling as though we were going right round in a circle without any of it making a lot of sense in the end. Being the fact I grew up in the South, most of the lessons were focused on the Rebel Army rather than the Union; yet being that I’m from Northern Stock, I was more keen to know about Grant’s positions and where my ancestors might have fit into this war. It would take over a decade to learn about my Great Granddaddy who was a Captain with the Union, and fresh off the boat from Ireland. The best bit was learning how he was a farmer and how much he loved the land. In some ways, I was never surprised to have learnt more than half my ancestors who immigrated to America ended up as farmers; it seems right as rain to me, being that I’m a locavore who appreciates farm fresh fruit and veg, locally grown (without chemicals) and sourced.

It didn’t matter which side your family fought on during this war because it was a war to end all wars in of itself. It was a war where everyone fought side by side and both sides (the North & the South) felt they were in the right. It has a brutal history and it has an empowering moment of change; nothing was the same, and battles were won on the deaths of so many innocents. To find a story that places true-to-life characters in the middle of this great war and gives a searing arc of climax that befits the war itself as much as the barriers women faced during that time is an incredible find.

McCabe centers her story on the true grit of historical fact originating out of the Civil War itself; including having found a real-life Rosetta who was part of the inspiration for her own. She doesn’t hold back from revealing the cardinal truths of the battlefield or the wounded inside the hospital wards, yet she is sensitive to their plight and I felt lifted in spirit rather than bogged down in the horrors of war. I felt she tempered the truth with a narrative that gives you a breath to absorb the words without always taking the reality of what they are expressing to a shocking conclusion. McCabe’s best attribute is in knowing what to include and how what happens affects everyone you’ve come to know. The war is both the backdrop and the shifting force to pull everyone forward and apart at the same time. It is a testament of our past and a testament of the power to fight for everything you believe in.

Posted Tuesday, 16 September, 2014 by jorielov in 19th Century, Blog Tour Host, Civil War Era (1861-1865), Debut Author, Debut Novel, Fly in the Ointment, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Military Fiction, Vulgarity in Literature, War Drama

Blog Book Tour: The Consolations of the Forest by Sylvain Tesson

Posted Tuesday, 10 December, 2013 by jorielov Rizzoli Ex Libris, Rizzoli International Publications Inc, Sylvain Tesson, The Consolations of the Forest (Alone in a Cabin on the Siberian Taiga) 2 Comments

The Consolations of the Forest by Sylvain Tesson, Translated by Linda Coverdale
Published By: Rizzoli Ex Libris (imprint of Rizzoli Publications, Inc.),
17 September 2013
Official Author Websites: Page sur l’auteur (in French);
Tesson @GoodReads (in French)
Available Formats: Hardcover
Page Count: 256

Acquired Book By: I was selected to be a stop on the blog book tour for “The Consolations of the Forest” hosted by France Book Tours. I received a complimentary copy of “The Consolations of the Forest” in exchange for an honest review by the publisher: Rizzoli Ex Libris. As I stated on a previous non-fiction tour stop, I am being rather active in seeking out non-fiction titles to read! I am naturally drawn into the natural world, which is why this felt like a good fit at the time I requested a stop! I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Inquisitively Curious to Read: I must say, I have always been intrigued by Siberia, and I started to watch his interview on the link you provided but all I truly understand from it, is the beautiful and sweeping vistas he’s sharing through the photographs he took whilst he was there! Oh, my dear heavens!! The landscape and ‘sense of place’ is evoking a stir in me to read this book! I am very attached to the natural world, and I am finding myself drawn into non-fiction books such as these that explore a connection and a sense of wonder which exhumes reverence &/or ruminative contemplation!

Author’s Biography:

Sylvain Tesson is a writer, journalist, and celebrated traveler.

He has been exploring Central Asia—on foot, bicycle, and horse—since 1997.

A best-seller in his native France, he is published all over the world—and now in the United States.

Interview with Sylvain Tesson via Le Figaro (Magazine) (also in French)

On his six months spent in the Siberian Forest

BOOK SYNOPSIS:

A meditation on escaping the chaos of modern life and rediscovering the luxury of solitude.

Winner of the Prix Médicis for non-fiction, THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE FOREST is a Thoreau-esque quest to find solace, taken to the extreme. No stranger to inhospitable places, Sylvain Tesson exiles himself to a wooden cabin on Siberia’s Lake Baikal—a full day’s hike from any “neighbor”— with his thoughts, books, a couple of dogs, and many bottles of vodka for company. Writing from February to July, he shares his deep appreciation for the harsh but beautiful land, the resilient men and women who populate it, and the bizarre and tragic history that has given Siberia an almost mythological place in the imagination.

Rich with observation, introspection, and the good humor necessary to laugh at his own folly, Tesson’s memoir is about the ultimate freedom of owning your own time. Only in the hands of a gifted storyteller can an experiment in isolation become an exceptional adventure accessible to all. By recording his impressions in the face of silence, his struggles in a hostile environment, his hopes, doubts, and moments of pure joy in communion with nature, Tesson makes a decidedly out-of-the-ordinary experience relatable to the reader who may be struggling with his or her own search for peace and balance in life. The awe and joy are contagious, and one comes away with the comforting knowledge that “as long as there is a cabin deep in the woods, nothing is completely lost.”

Reader’s Note: If you look at the cover art on Tesson’s book you will find slightly raised lettering for the title & subtitle section as well as the author’s name. The essence of the book cover for me is the painting of the isolated and extreme disconnection which Tesson experienced whilst on his six-month sojourn into the wild! I love the ruggedness of the design, as if the book itself was kept in his knapsack as he lived and traveled whilst jotting down his ruminations and observations! The book as well as the man returned back to society a bit weathered and all-knowing of mysterious truths not yet revealed to the wider audience. In this vein of thought, I felt it was best to view the cover in its fullness of glory if only to impart the richness of design! Let me know what it evokes inside your own mind’s eye in the comments section below!

Taming the Wild Thoughts of Man

I can relate to Tesson’s ambition to pull back from the chaotic swirling of our everyday lives to the brink of where we lose sight of the honest truths about why we are here in the first place. We can become so muddled and clogged by our modern lives, where the natural environment which always lives just a finger touch away from us — dissolves as though it were never there at all. The act of living through the paces brings all of humanity a further step backward to acknowledging the larger picture of ‘where’ we are whilst we walk our journey ‘on Earth’ due to the limited sense of space. The natural world is a wonderful place to walk and abide in a cleansing of our inner life’s turmoil of spirit. Nature has a way of enveloping us in such a warm embrace as to allow time itself to stand suspended. If we are mindful of our surroundings, realising that we are entering into a habitat for which we are only the causal visitor, the experience of what our eyes can drink in and our heart can eclipse through sensory perceptions has an intoxicating allure!

Releasing ourselves into the mercy of nature is what I think any person might at first struggle with coming to terms with as by our very internal nature, we as humans, want to control all the possible outcomes of our actions. In which full effect goes to reason, if we can control our own probabilities how do we learn to suspend logic, reason, and a time-locked certainty of events?

I had a feathering of a chuckling whilst observing Tesson as he first embarked on his journey towards the Taiga itself, whereupon he had to pick up his provisions for his six-month exodus! The bugs I had barely begun to even wonder about even if I have a true-to-life impression of what kinds of bugs one might find out in the wilds of a forest! No, it was the irony of sorting out what to purchase and what to take that struck my fancy the most! As if you were to think back on your last extended stay travel plans, don’t you find that no matter how well-prepared you were in theory, there was always a measure of error in never realising what you should have included instead!? I was pensively lying in wait to see if any of what he proposed to take was not limiting of what he needed to take! Although I must say, I think if everyone took a bit of time to declutter their lives of unessential extravagance if only for a short-term experiment, we all might find the joy in the unexpected simplicity which grows our hearts the closest towards empathy and understanding.

When you start to pull back the layers of your outer world as it merges with your inner world, you start to see the pieces of the tapestry unravel as the stitchings are given new markers. We can effectively change our stars if we are willing to forsake one way of living to embrace a new path of towards enlightenment. In which we are truly living a more humble truth of existence compared to one which is hinged to the cyclic chaos that all to often becomes the norm. Tesson prompts the reader to contemplate their own choices in what they have chosen to forego in their own lives in place of a way of living that is set to a different standard than modern society. Each of us can transcend ourselves onto a path of living in the fullness of a moment and in the realness of a community which extolls the virtues of community spirit which by extension our lives are enriched in greater joy.

A full embrace of the Natural World’s Rhythmic Cycle

As he started to sink into the natural world’s rhythmic cycle, Tesson was allowing his mind to jettison into the realm between where man’s world ends and nature’s begins. I love his unique perspective of describing nature as it inhibits itself from progressing forward and/or makes radical adjustments to proceed with its ancient murmurings of Wintry ablations. Each step forward for the forest, gives him a curious eye towards how microscopic we truly are out where the rules of man are out-ruled by the natural order of life itself.

Not one to shy away from imparting his somewhat cheeky and viscerally stimulating images on the reader who picks up his journal of lamentations, Tesson finds a clear path towards the reader’s imagination being stimulated by the mere thought of what his eyes are taking in off the page! The sheer force of raw nature bubbling to life and etching itself closer to where his tiny cabin lay squat and square by the shore of a massive lake! The brutal truth of how far by foot he would have to travel if he were in need of another human’s presence! I was even whet with curiosity over the close proximity of neighbours of whom might not be as companionable nor as conversative but rather would be more keenly focused on invading or scrimaging with his host country!

I could relate to his intriguing fascination with each wonderment he betook before him, because anyone who has stood still, reflectively pensive and a mind lit open to pure joy will understand the addiction of ‘seeing’ what the natural environment will next reveal to you! There is an aching of belonging to those who tread into the natural depths of where nature resides. The longer you walk alongside our wild inhabitants, noting their routines and nodding at their ordinary moments, the more your apt to find yourself at internal peace. It guides you back, beckoning you to resume where you left off, as though you had only placed a bookmark on a page where you could return back to the story in progress. In some ways, this is a true observation, but the hitching in your chest as you wonder how the animals are fairing in your absence, or how many deep sighs of woe the trees are billowing out of their upper boughs until you drop by again for a visit? This is something that only those who have become awakened can understand and fully respect.

As a turtle who ambles along the forest floor gathering moss and algae on its shell, so too, do humans leave an illuminant trace of their wanderings. Niches of our footprints carving into the order of things, ringing in our presence as each new day we visit gleams into view. The interconnected web of our lives are forever stitched together with the fowl, mammal, and amphibian who takes a measure of a mirth out of their day to stare into our eyes as our paths cross their own. Strangers and foe, yield to acquaintance and friend. Companions outside of their own species whose respect for the other knows no bounds.

To Philosophise, Elucidate, or Elidiate? Is this a Question?

Whilst he continues to go about his ‘new normal routine’ of surviving in mind-bending low temperatures, Tesson takes on a bit of an outer dialogue of his state of place. There are moments where you are curious if the questions he is proposing are to a common explanation of what all men might have considered from one era or another. OR, if his murmurings were the tiny envelopes of discovery he was knitting together whilst being away from every piece of modernism he could escape. He gives short spurts of adjective stylings of his observations, glimpses of what is going on ‘right then’ as he were to leave his journal and pen, in order to stoke the fire or denote the severity of the conditions outside. A man in pause of his new living reality. Therein, we start to see the freshness of his eyes, how keen his observations are becoming and how heart-warming it is that he took the courage to share them with all of us in the form of a book!

I think whilst he was living through this journey towards a deeper self-acceptance and self-transcribed inner record of growth, he was stumbling into writing down key insights that some of us might not notice even if we had half of a proper lifetime to curate the experiences! He has a clever way only a man would find interesting to give us a full sense of his reasonings, and in this, I smile. He isn’t one to be bashful, but he isn’t one to not notice the eloquence of seeing what can be seen yet is not always given the freedom of acceptance.

His ruminative nature of sensing the expanse of time and its ability to be slowed down by certain actions which suspend its power to contract is the mark of someone who sees the beauty of walking. Walking is man’s one way of stilling the passage of time, simply by refusing to allow time to speed past what man is willing to walk against. It very well may be the one singular power we have that few of us attempt to use to our own advantage. The ages have always enquired the elasticity of time and its errant mannerisms for first alighting at a slower speed before kicking into high gear past the speed of light. What causes the shift in perception of time? Is it our actions and our living patterns? Or is it the perception of ‘place’ and ‘setting’ and ‘of being’ that alters how the clock counts its seconds? What if time could blink still and resume at the very same moment your thoughts were centered at a fixed point in nature? As the patterns of time out-of-doors is run against a hidden pattern of synchronicity it is plausible that we effectively could forestall a bit of time whilst inhabiting a well-worn path for foot traffic.

My Review of The Consolations of the Forest:

I have always known that the particular pace of our individual lives was set to a rather high extreme of inefficiency as far as the quality of life being extracted at too high of a cost. I was most likely clued into this at a young age due to the insanity of my own father’s 24/7 time-clock of profession. You start to see the little fragmented ripples in the sphere of life. Where as you intersect with time, it is time itself that becomes your greatest lesson and teacher. You nourish the hidden moments which are blind to your eyes as you live, but are unearthed out of necessity and/or through a determined mother’s insistence of having the family kept together even if the father’s hours were mad-crazy bent against it! In those quiet and sombering hours, you start to see the little ripples of what sets your family apart from others’ who are in the same professional grid.

Where one family might have taken the same course as those before them, mine started to breakaway and create a new path forged out of a desire to create a better life which would sustain themselves long after the work day ended. A curious attachment to a slower pace of acknowledging the rhythms of life was only the beginning. Seeking out a full circle change of season, and community interconnectedness took a much longer quest to uncover! Where the locality of place led to a local excursion of food sources, community-spun events, a natural nod and wink to seasonal joys, and an inertia of earthen artistianal crafts.

In Tesson’s journal of solitude in Siberia, I see reflections of my own heart’s desire to unlock a path towards withdrawing from the regular pace of my own life and world. To where I am not forever hinged to the clock but rather, am the one who winds the cogs to match my own rhythm. To live around others who take extreme pleasure in walking through fog-lit streets and forest passageways which led to a quiet dawn. To feel the dirt fall off the fruit and veg at a farmer’s market held in all tentacles of weather and climate. Conversations boiled to life over exchangements of literature, art, cultural co-mingling events, and the passages of nature’s graceful hand in front of us. There is a heart-rhythm to living and a soul’s earthly quest to re-align itself with a pace which exhumes the internal truths of from whence we came and thus will once again return.

A Curious Footnote:

I thought it was rather smashing of a coincidence that some of the very same books I am including on my classical literature reading list for when I join “The Classics Club” in January 2014 were listed as part of the books Tesson hauled into the Taiga! Books such as: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Walden by Henry David Thoreau, Twelfth Night or What You Will by William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare, The Thousand and One Nights (The Arabian Nights) by Unknown, The Complete Novels by Ernest Hemingway, Tao Te Ching bt Lao Tzu, The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain,… his surprising choice was of the book I chose to abandon in fourth grade out of sheer boredom: “Robinson Crusoe” by William Defoe. I would have presumed he would have taken Jack London!?

I must also lay a bit of gratitude to the translator, Ms. Coverdale who turnt French into English in such a drinkable way as to soften the words into a walkable feast!

The “Consolations of the Forest” Virtual Book Tour Roadmap:

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

The Consolations of the Forest (Alone in a Cabin on the Siberian Taiga) by Sylvain Tesson

Published by Rizzoli Ex Libris on 17th September, 2013

Public Library • Add to Riffle • Format: Hardcover
Source: Publisher via France Book Tours
Genres: Memoir, Non-Fiction
Pages: 256

on my Bookish Events Featured on JLAS

Continuing my discovery of Baikal, the Lake in Siberia by which this book enchanted my mind:

Situated in south-east Siberia, the 3.15-million-ha Lake #Baikal is the oldest (25 million years) and deepest (1,700 m) lake in the world.

— Tatiana Wright (@twright55) December 11, 2013

Drummers use the frozen surface of Lake Baikal, Siberia, as an instrument http://t.co/o1iHEhSFR1 via @youtube

— TheLondonSoundSurvey (@LondonSounds) December 4, 2013

Some travel writing still holds wonder and profound meaning. Text: http://t.co/YDl4Bn5hVt Video: http://t.co/uOCMbq9BEK v @danielsilas

— Matthew Teller (@matthewteller) June 3, 2013

Lake Baikal is the the worlds oldest & deepest freshwater lake. Photo by Danil Korzhonov. http://t.co/DYPAI89SJv pic.twitter.com/yctPYltolT

— REI Asheville (@REIAsheville) April 5, 2013

#Transsib: for nature lovers with sense of romantic adventure. For anyone who wants to see beautiful Siberia http://t.co/2xArIahgmA

— Irina Peters (@irinapeters1) November 28, 2013

{SOURCES: Cover art and book synopsis of “The Consolations of the Forest”, Sylvain Tesson’s photograph and the blog tour badge were all provided by France Book Tours and used with permission. Blog tour badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. An excerpt was originally meant to be included but was not ready at time of posting my review. Tweets were able to be embedded due to embed codes taken directly from each tweet on Twitter for sharing purposes. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. France Book Tours badge created by Jorie in Canva.}

Posted Tuesday, 10 December, 2013 by jorielov in Author Interview, Blog Tour Host, Bookish Films, Debut in United States, France Book Tours, Journal, Life in Another Country, Nature - Essays, Non-Fiction, Seclusion in the Natural World, Travel Narrative | Memoir, Vignettes of Real Life, Vulgarity in Literature

Blog Book Tour: Illuminations by Mary Sharratt

Posted Friday, 1 November, 2013 by jorielov Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Illuminations: A novel of Hildegard von Bingen, Mary Sharratt 1 Comment

Illuminations: {A novel of Hildegard von Bingen} by Mary Sharratt

Published By: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 9 October, 2012
Published By: Mariner Books, 15 October, 2013 [paperback edition]
Official Author Websites: Sharratt on Facebook; Sharratt on Twitter;
Personal Website and Blog.
Available Formats: Paperback, Hardback, and E-Book
Page Count: 288

Acquired Book By: Winning a contest adverted through “Shelf Awareness for Readers” bi-weekly newsletter, October 2012. I received the hardcover book direct from the publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt without obligation to post a review. When I started to work with Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, I made a request to join this book tour, as due to different reasons I have not yet had the pleasure of reading this book! I thought it would be lovely to participate in a blog book tour on behalf of a book I was rather intrigued to start reading! I was thankful to be selected to participate on the tour! I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts herein.

Original Interest to Read: I originally had discovered the author and the book on Book Browse prior to seeing the contest on Shelf Awareness. I was swept away by the research, the passion, and the dedication Sharratt enfused into the book “Illuminations” as it was not only a historical biography of a woman very few of us would have uncovered without her efforts, but it felt like a living testament of how the strength of a woman can make a marked change on the world around her. I have always celebrated the lives of women who stand up for social injustice as well as indoctrinated wrongs that others’ might be too passive to attack themselves. As women, we’re given a beautiful gift of being able to use our enlightened minds for the power of positive change, and I felt as I read the synopsis and words on this book, that that is exactly the type of story that would envelope me if I read Hildegard’s story.

Author Biography:

The author of four critically acclaimed historical novels, Mary Sharratt is an American who lives in the Pendle region of Lancashire, England, the setting for her acclaimed Daughters of the Witching Hill, which recasts the Pendle Witches of 1612 in their historical context as cunning folk and healers. She also lived for twelve years in Germany, which, along with her interest in sacred music and herbal medicine, inspired her to write Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen. Illuminations won the Nautilus Gold Award for Better Books for a Better World and was selected as a Kirkus Book of the Year.

Book Synopsis:

Skillfully weaving historical fact with psychological insight and vivid imagination, Illuminations brings to life one of the most extraordinary women of the Middle Ages: Hildegard von Bingen, Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath.

Offered to the Church at the age of eight, Hildegard was expected to live in silent submission as the handmaiden of a renowned, disturbed young nun, Jutta von Sponheim. But Hildegard rejected Jutta’s masochistic piety, rejoicing in her own secret visions of the divine. When Jutta died, Hildegard broke out of her prison, answering the heavenly call to speak and write about her visions and to liberate her sisters. Riveting and utterly unforgettable, Illuminations is a deeply moving portrayal of a woman willing to risk everything for what she believed.

Out of Darkness and Anguish,…

The opening bits of Illuminations, is guttingly honest and real, as Hildegard is in her elder years of seventy on the brink of eighty, whilst on the precipice of a vengeful storm requiring sufferance! Her longanimity of the impeding darkness that is about to swirl around herself and the daughters’ in her charge is of impeccable clarity! How she endeavoured to have the forethought to circumvent the discretion of a buried soul with the full knowledge of how severely the act would affect her, is beyond comprehension; except to say, her raw courage was fully illumine from a source greater than the wrath of man! The quotation that Sharratt used as preface to Chapter One, taken from Hildegard’s own writings on how she foresaw the Feminine Divine is stirringly moving to the point of feeling an inward sense of calm. Which you reflect upon whilst reading where we enter her life at such an arduous time that bespeaks a greater evocable merit of trust. I had a forbearance of knowing, that her humble protection of humanity will become the forefront of her life.

Her solitude of being cast into a brick tiered wall of the Anchorite chamber made me lament about how at such a young age of eight she was sent into darkness to seek out the light. Her anguish for losing her innocence and childhood vexed her as she grew accustomed to being shrouded in a tomb. Her only outside contact was through a grate and a window on high that allowed in bits of the outside world through its portal. I wondered how she fought her discourse to crave into an inward spiral and instead, constantly found the ability to dig deeper and seek out the light. I think if she had not been blessed with the orbs (visions), she might have lost herself in that dark space whilst she spent her young years on a sojourn for learning and knowledge. Her life lessons came to her abruptly at an age where most of us are still exploring our environments, testing the wills of independence, and finding our voice, confidence, and the path of interest we wish to walk as we age.

To illumine the mind and strengthen the spirit,…

I have always known of the interconnectedness of humanity, the natural world, and the realm behind the veil of this world which is the gateway to spirit world. Each of us is connected to each other and to what is not yet understood though believed to be in existence on faith alone. What I appreciated about reading Hilegard’s story is that she is touching on the elemental truths that each spiritual person comes to realise and accept: the circle of life and of time, the abundance of the interlocking connections, and how we are only in the infancy of our understandings of the greater whole that we strive to obtain whilst we walk Earth.

By examining her life through this biographic exposition, we are striving to become closer to understanding what she came to understand herself. Each of us are given gifts in life to share and pass down, small legacies of goodwill, hope, peace, love, charity, and grace. We tap into where our lifepath is leading us whilst we are openly receptive to where we are being guided to go next. Hilegard was unique in this, as she viewed herself as a flawed human who made more mistakes than deemed repentable, and yet, she could not help acknowledge that she had become a vessel of truth, as chosen as her destiny to give others’ insight that they were not privy too. She reminds me of women I have heard about prior to her, who never felt they were good enough to be placed in a position of importance. How humbling it is then, to realise that these are the women and spiritual beings who are called upon to do the most good during their lifetime!? To ingenuate a plausibility of which most of us might forego or bypass whilst caught up in the clatterment of living our lives!?

A wordsmith of Divine Grace:

The words in which consume Illuminations, are set on a higher keeling of intellect, that draw the reader forward and back into a time whereupon the essence of explaining the Divine in singular breaths of words was not as readily forthright to convey, as it was a time in need of edifying the truth by which was shown to the limited few who could hear the Voice. Sharratt has undertaken a gift for channeling the words of which Hildegard herself might have used to express not only the experiences of her life, but of the time in which she lived. The story begins in 1177, set on the cusp between the 12th and 13th centuries, in a time of harrowing and clandestine turmoil. And, yet Sharratt has a way of speaking through the essence of Hildegard as though we can be transported back into her timescape, wholly aware of her surroundings, and seeing everything unfold as it once did for her. Including glimmerments of her internal thoughts and emotional angst. There are poetic ruminations throughout the text that draw you into the story and let’s your imagination not skip forward off the page your eyes are consuming.

Hilegard’s humbleness is infused with her fortitude, for not only being a woman in high regard in her abbey but to have reached an apex of celebrity amongst her peers in the Church and Orders, due to her gift for visionary prophecies. Her elucidate nature of being a woman who thinks before she speaks, and one who doesn’t falter in will when she is taken unawares proves that she internally had strengthened herself long ago in her younger years to be anchored to her faith.

Review of Illuminations:

Hilegard von Bingen was a Renaissance Woman ahead of her time, given the hour of her birth and the compass point of her life. Alongside da Vinci, she embarked on not only ascertaining a living truth of Latin and Religion, but of each interconnected subject and topic that would cross sect with an interest that was at the tip of importance for knowledge of what would become imparted to her through visionary grace. She was a formidable woman whose humble nature did not wish to extract her weaknesses, but rather shed light on them for what they were and to utilize her strengths when necessity demanded them.

As a young child growing up surrounded by the Crusades, she was given her first taste of the visions that would later set the course of her life. I was touched by how genuinely innocent they were and how frequent they would visit her, hoping to find a way for her to yield to her gift. I’d imagine that most youngsters at the age of five might rather attempt to ‘fit in’ than to be cast out as an enigma! For this, I musefully could understand her reasoning! How she drew upon a strength of resolve to survive her cast into an Anchorite Order at the age of eight, I do not readily know! Yet, she embodied a pure caste of curiosity, which strove for her to further her knowledge, and learn as much as her mind could encompass. In that regard, I believe her will to learn became her first saving grace whilst she was entombed as an Anchorite.

I was not quite prepared for how long her term as an Anchorite would last, as she was well into her mid-thirties when I realised just how long she had been in captivity! She even sacrificed her own freedom to save two young girls whose plight in life would have been doubly worse than had they joined her. My heart ached for all three of them, and for the fourth, Jutta who long ago had given up on living, wretched by a transgression made against her and blackened against all light and love. They had few moments of joy, but for the most part, their lives were endured by an endless see of ritual, rite, and prayer.

Hilegard’s inner resolve to find peace with her faith and with her lot in life is a testament to how we each struggle to make sense of the circumstances that arise that lay obstacles in our path. Each of us is walking our own path towards understanding, for where we are meant to live as much as how we are meant to live. Her solitude from the outside world provided her with wisdom that even she, I dare not think, could fully grasp or understand. She was given visions of knowledge that fall outside the realm of what we would regularly be led to see. Her maternal nature I think, is one of her greatest gifts, as she unearthed of all the attributes that we are bestowed it’s our ability to love and give love that counts the most on high.

In the midst of lost hope, she found liberty and justice. Her heart swelled for the freedom which she was finally granted to live as a proper nun, rather than an entombed Anchorite. I could relate to her attachment to the natural world and the calm balm of insight and mirth that walking in nature can give you. She found God’s light and joy nestled amongst the woods, herbs, and flowers. As much as basking in the glow of the warming sun. How I have oft found myself swept into warm embrace that walking in nature can afford! If we look keenly, we shall see His light wherever we turn.

Illluminations is an apt title to give this story, because it is also its central theme. The luminescent purity of God’s spoken word igniting itself into her mind, heart, and soul. And, yet, Illuminations also spoke to me of the whispers of truth and guidance that sometimes we try to sweep away, not willing to accept them for what they are and for the reason by which they were given to us. I think the best gift of her life is to remain true to ourselves, but yield to the will of God even if the path He is placing in front of us has its share of tribulations, it’s the bits we cannot yet see that come through on the other side of our discomfort that lead to our restitution.

A note of gratitude:

I am always fervently thankful for authors who conduct intensive research to breathe life into their stories with such an exquisite hand of probable narrative, that when you go to read a biographical fiction accountment of a life once lived, that there are enough pieces and fragments of the person etched into the text your reading. I am thankful to say, it would appear that Sharratt is one such writer who is happily consumed and entrenched in the work that goes into fortifying the story with historical remnants and facts. I haven’t read other biographies of Hilegard von Bingen, as this is the first book that tipped my hat of interest towards learning more about her, but the voice of Hilegard inside Illuminations is one that begs you to give her a chance to say her peace. She’s an unassuming woman whose faith tested her in ways that not all of us could have endured. She appears to have longed for a bit of normalcy even within the confines of her vows, which thankfully, if history and fact are correct in this account, she at least found a bit of that when the bricks of her hidden prison were taken down.

Sharratt gives you a lot to chew on whilst your reading, from the way in which she paints the visions to life, to the contemplations of the human spirit, the Divine Grace, and the elements of faith and spirituality itself. She gives you a hearty tome of reflection and presents a woman who lived in touch with the Feminine Divine. I marked this as “Inspirational Fiction” as I think it befits that declaration as much as “Historical Fiction” and “Biographical Fiction”, as religion and spirituality are at the core and heart of this story, yet the time in which she lived is so far removed from modern eras it’s historically inclined to be reflective of how we perceive the 12th Century through the modern lens we approach it by.

“Illuminations” Book Trailer by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Converse About “Illuminations”
via the Discussion Guide:

[ IF you have read the book, I encourage you to open a conversation
in the comments section below!]

Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen by Mary Sharratt — Discussion Questions

by Houghton Miffton Harcourt

View this document on Scribd

The “Iluminations” Virtual Book Tour Roadmap:

14 October: Review @ The Maiden’s Court
15 October: Review (from 2012) Interview @ Unabridged Chick
16 October: Review @ Bitches with Books
17 October: Review @ Flashlight Commentary
17 October: Review @ A Bookish Libraria
18 October: Interview @ Flashlight Commentary
21 October: Review @ Book of Secrets
22 October: Review @ The Most Happy Reader
22 October: Review @ Book Lovers Paradise
23 October: Review @ Books, Belles, and Beaux
23 October: Review @ Confessions of an Avid Reader
24 October: Review @ Just One More Chapter
24 October: Guest Post @ Books, Belles, and Beaux
25 October: Interview @ Just One More Chapter
28 October: Review @ Bloggin’ bout Books
29 October: Review @ Griperangs Bookmarks
29 October: Guest Post @ HF Book Muse – News
30 October: Review @ Ageless Pages Reviews
All Saint’s Day: Review @ Jorie Loves A Story
All Saint’s Day: Review @ Broken Teepee
4 November: Review @ Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews
5 November: Review @ The True Book Addict
5 November: Interview @ Erika Mailman Blog
6 November: Review @ CelticLady’s Reviews
6 November: Guest Post @ The True Book Addict
7 November: Review @ Oh, For the Hook of a Book!
8 November: Review @ History and Women
8 November: Interview @ Oh, For the Hook of a Book!
11 November: Review @ A Bookish Affair
11 November: Review @ Closed the Cover
12 November: Review @ vvb32reads
12 November: Guest Post @ A Bookish Affair
13 November: Review @ The Musings of ALMYBNENR
14 November: Review @ So Many Books, So Little Time
14 November: Feature @ Book-alicious Mama
15 November: Review @ Books in the Burbs
16 November: Book Spotlight @ Passages to the Past

IF you want to follow the conversation by Twitter, please tune into: #IlluminationsTour There is also a Twitter share button below this post for your convenience as well.

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

on my Bookish Events Featured on JLAS

{SOURCES: Cover art of “Illuminations” as well as Mary Sharratt’s photograph and biography, the blog tour badge, and the logo banner for HFVBT were all provided by Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours and used with permission. The book trailer by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as well as the discussion guide via Scribd 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. Post dividers were provided by Shabby Blogs, who give bloggers free resources to add personality to their blogs. Blog tour badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. }

Related Articles:

Hildegard of Bingen – (en.wikipedia.org)

Polymath – (en.wikipedia.org)

Doctor of the Church – (en.wikipedia.org)

Primary Source Breaththrough! – Hilegard’s Letter to the Prelates of Mainz (symphonialisestanima.wordpress.com)

Posted Friday, 1 November, 2013 by jorielov in 12th Century, Benedictine Abbess, Biographical Fiction & Non-Fiction, Blog Tour Host, Book Browse, Christian Mystic, Composer, Early Middle Ages [the Dark Ages] (1001-1300), High Middle Ages (1000-1299), Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Inspirational Fiction & Non-Fiction, Nun, Philosopher, Polymath, Scribd, Shelf Awareness, Writer

Format: Hardcover

Virtual Road Map for “A Paris Apartment” Blog Tour:

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

on my Bookish Events page!

Read an Excerpt of the Novel:

Author’s Biography:

Sylvain Tesson is a writer, journalist, and celebrated traveler.

He has been exploring Central Asia—on foot, bicycle, and horse—since 1997.

A best-seller in his native France, he is published all over the world—and now in the United States.

BOOK SYNOPSIS:

Taming the Wild Thoughts of Man

A full embrace of the Natural World’s Rhythmic Cycle

To Philosophise, Elucidate, or Elidiate? Is this a Question?

My Review of The Consolations of the Forest:

The “Consolations of the Forest” Virtual Book Tour Roadmap:

Continuing my discovery of Baikal, the Lake in Siberia by which this book enchanted my mind:

Out of Darkness and Anguish,…

To illumine the mind and strengthen the spirit,…

A wordsmith of Divine Grace:

Review of Illuminations:

A note of gratitude:

Converse About “Illuminations” via the Discussion Guide:

The “Iluminations” Virtual Book Tour Roadmap:

IF you want to follow the conversation by Twitter, please tune into: #IlluminationsTour There is also a Twitter share button below this post for your convenience as well.

Converse About “Illuminations”
via the Discussion Guide: