This time last year by Amy Andrews

This time last year, I was in Frace, with my family. My extended family too - my brother and his family and my dad was there as well. 

We went for the 100th anniversary of the battle for Villers Bretonneux fought by the Australian army which just happens to fall on another very important day for Australians and NZ'ers - 25th of April or Anazac day. 

We spent 3 weeks in rural France travelling all around the old Western Front as well as Normandy and went to the dawn service at the war memorial at Villers which was very moving (also freezing and rainy..)

After that we spent 2 weeks in a tiny village in the Loire valley in a gorgeous old house where 2 sets of friends joined us over the course of that time. It was wonderful and relaxing. The weather was lovely and we drank French wine and ate French cheese in the lovely gardens and visted all the nearby markets and several of the chateaus that make the area famous.

It was the first time we'd really explored rural France and I cant recommend it highly enough! And I can't wait to go back.

So, what about you? What were you doing this time last year?

Best Cities for Romance Readers

by Bronwyn Jameson

I love to travel. And because I cannot travel often enough, to enough fabulous places for my liking, I like to read about other people travelling...or simply living (and falling in love) in fabulous places which I then want to visit.  I dream about travel, and I plan travel adventures more often than I actually get to travel.

Hence, my inbox and social media feeds feature travel newsletters and magazines and read-me-and-dream articles. This recent headline in my newsfeed was perfect clickbait for me: Best Cities For Book Lovers .  Hands up if you would have clicked as well?

To save you clicking, I can tell you that the list includes:

• San Francisco, inspired by Jack Kerouac’s On the Road
• London for Dickens and Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (amongst others)
• Paris for Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (which did inspire my Paris visit)
• St Petersburg: War and Peace, Crime and Punishment.

You get the picture: a nice list for literary classics...but what about something more contemporary or genre-based?  I'd expected to at least see The DaVinci Code!  Which got me thinking about the places which have inspired my travel plans or which would inspire future plans. 

And here is my list (not all cities, I cheated!) based on some of my favourite romance novels and authors: 

Bath: on my first visit to England I *had to* visit Bath and the Pump Room because of Georgette Heyer and many other Regencies. I pictured myself at an assembly with my dance card and reticule, expectations high. Happy sigh. 

London: one of my favourite London days was losing myself in the posh streets and squares of Mayfair and Belgravia, scoping out the fancy digs and imagining the streets populated with landaus and phaetons and curricles instead of European cars and nannies pushing posh prams. 

Paris: I defy anyone to read Laura Florand’s deliciously decadent “chocolate” series and not want to scour the city and iles for the confectionary shops and restaurants from this series. 

Provence: any Harlequin set in the south of France would capture my attention but there is one particular beauty by Susan Napier – Public Scandal, Private Mistress – which fires my dreams of a stay in a hilltop town within driving distance of the coast (with a handsome man in a sports car to squire me around, since we’re dreaming!) 

Puget Sound: not inspired by any one book but by many I’ve read over the years, by Jayne Anne Krentz in particular, set around the islands in the sound. 

Seattle: purely for Rachel Gibson’s ice hockey books. I mean, I will run into one of these hot guys just strolling around the city, right? 

Chicago: in the same vein I could say this is all about Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ Chicago Stars football series but it’s as much about Julie James’ FBI/Attorney series (same general reasoning as Seattle, okay?) 

Coronado: all because of Suzanne Brockmann’s SEAL team books. 

Which place would you add to my list, inspired by which book(s)?

Foreign Language Challenges - Annie West

Well, guess where I am as you're reading this? It's the first day of the inaugural Festival du Roman Feminin in Paris - a two day festival designed especially for readers of romance!

That means I may be a bit tardy dropping by the LoveCats blog. By the look of the marvellous program, I'm going to be very busy for the next couple of days, before moving on to Berlin for the LoveLetter Convention, again just for romance readers. Talk about a thrilling week! To share the thrill I'm including a couple of location shots you might enjoy - not from this year's Festival but from a previous visit to Paris (and yes, I do know how lucky I am to have more than one visit here).

 

 

These festivals also mean I'm going to be very, very challenged. You see, I'm not one of the world's better linguists and I didn't learn a second language at school. They say if you start learning early it stays with you longer, don't they? Well, I was a late starter, which means I'm going to be struggling. You see, I have no French. I can say hello and thank you. I can order a glass of wine or a bottle of water but apart from that? Sigh.

 

Now, fortunately these festivals are beautifully organised so that even linguistically challenged authors like me can speak in English and be understood, but it does make me feel guilty that I can't say far more in the local language. I had the best intentions to do a crash course in French and to brush up my very little amount of German before leaving. Sadly some family issues took up my time and I'll be lucky to arrive with a properly packed bag.

 

I'll be trying to learn a little on the plane but given my ability to make terrible mistakes, it's a worry that I've left it so late. I've embarrassed myself many times trying to speak another language. Like the time I walked into a shop and asked, quite confidently I might add, to buy a kiss instead of a cushion. You can imagine how that went down!

 

So now I'm girding my loins to utter a few words of French and then German and keeping my fingers crossed I don't say anything too appalling.

 

How about you? Are you great with second, third or even fourth languages? Is there one you love or one you'd love to master? Or are you like me, struggling with a smile and lots of sign language?