The series is actually set in the Georgian era (well, Georgian era for the UK although the series itself will be set in Paris). 1774 to be precise. Therefore, I will have need of the Louvre in my setting, although the monarchy was in Versailles at that point. But I will not need the pretty glass pyramid.

Nor will I need the Eiffel Tower, but that’s always fun to spot in the distance. If you want a sneak peek at that series and the other three talented authors who will join me in contributing to it, you can find it here.

Since I last wrote, we hosted a Ukrainian teen for a year. Sviata. And her mom and sister came regularly as well. That was a neat experience and we hope to see them again. The dad was exempt from military service at last because of his eyesight, and we were able to meet him earlier this fall.

(Tuileries below).

We did our usual Bretagne vacation with the extended family, and not for the first time we wondered if this would be our last time. The cousins are all getting too big, although they still love to see each other. And we can’t go in the years we visit the States (like this upcoming July).

We also did the teen camp in the Swiss Alps again. That was such a rich experience as always. We had lots of Ukrainians again this year, and this time we also had twins from the Czech Republic. I think we’ll be having more teens from Eastern Europe in the future.

Juliet is in her second year of university for art (2D animation) and she’s such a delightful, creative soul. Gabriel is a high school senior and will probably do something along the lines of business management. He’s really good at leading. William is in 10th grade and it’s too soon to tell what he will do. Right now, the only thing that interests him is basketball. So we just go with the flow. (My two boys are taller than my husband now – both over 6 feet).

Christmas decorations are starting in Paris.

I’ve just completed my 12th Regency book (and my 15th book overall). Philippa Holds Court won the New England Reader’s Choice award – 1st place in Historical Romance. My books are translated in four languages, and the fifth (Spanish) is in the works. My next release is next Tuesday, which is also my birthday! So I plan to celebrate by wandering around Paris again, but this time with my husband.

In January (yes, almost a year ago) I traveled to Salt Lake City for the first time to meet some good writer friends, and I hope I’ll get to do more trips like that. It’s been a while since I’ve done anything like travel solo just for fun. I’m trying to figure out which writer conferences will be the most worth it in terms of seeing friends and learning new things.

And at the end of November, I’ll be doing a Meet & Greet author event in Paris, then a much larger one in April. That one is multinational (the RARE event) bringing together 200+ authors with 1000+ readers. That is going to be fun. (And a bit intimidating).

We continue to serve in our church and host. In fact, our newly furnished guest bedroom is almost never empty. We’re sort of thinking it would be a good thing to have a break from hosting, maybe just for a month or two. We don’t mind, but sometimes it’s nice just with family. And as our teens grow, we realise how little the time is we have left with them in the house. (sob). Got to take full advantage.

Something I miss about my blogging days is that I feel like I was more engaged in living then than I am now. For one thing, I had little ones, so you needed to be hands on. Every celebration and holiday took on a special significance. Every meal had the chance of being something new – and every trip was filled with excitement. Now they’re teens with earphones in, and I spend a lot of time working. If I’m not writing, I’m reviewing narration or translations, or I’m working on ads or marketing. I could seriously work 12 hour days if my family didn’t still need me. Fortunately, they still do need me.

But that’s why it was so nice to get out and walk. And to remember I live right near Paris. And to remember that while I can feel quite old (turning 54) I’m still fairly young. And what a shame to exchange real life and real living for being parked in front of the computer every hour of the day. Besides, autumn is my favorite season, and I don’t want to miss it.

So this is what I’m thinking of. It’s time to live a little, even if it means producing less. That can’t possible be a bad decision.

If you want to read my upcoming release, you can download it here. It will also be available on library applications. Print is coming soon. I just got the cover for it, so I need to put that up. And! It will be available for free (with ads) on YouTube, along with all my other audiobooks. You can find me on YouTube here. Listening to audiobooks can be a fun way to get through chores.

And finally, I have a bookstore now. (Jennie Goutet Books). It will also have merchandise on it. (I’m waiting to get the files from a French artist I admire). But more importantly, it has my books. The designer is currently working on the site, so what you see is not the final design. But it’s fully functional. Click the image below to check it out.

And that has been how I’ve spent my year. You can get more regular news by signing up for my author newsletter, here. Or you can just stick around for my next post. Hopefully some time before 2025. Sending love and warm wishes!

The post Lovely, lovely Paris. And my news for the past year. appeared first on A Lady In France.

I mean, I’m not ordering you to be grateful or thankful or anything like that, but ’tis the season to at least consider it. Sometimes it can be good to force the focus on gratitude a little because it does shift one’s perspective. I find it otherwise exceedingly easy to complain.

Here are a few things I, personally am grateful for.

Our house is, at last, completed. This is only a small glimpse of the outside (it’s now too dark out to get a better picture), but you can see how beautiful the white and black are together.

Painting the front stairs is up to us.

And we love this bathroom upstairs:

The four bedrooms all have mezzanine beds, which gives them tons more room.

We now have a nook in the stairwell that holds our plants (and “une maie” which traditionally held bread that now holds our Christmas decorations, which we’ll be putting out soon).

And I finally have my long-awaited office. It is where the boys used to share a room.

The artwork for my three illustrated books is on its way and will go on that big blank wall up there.

I’m grateful for my family. For my larger family that I grew up in, for the family I married into, and for the family I live with every day.

We have an extra teen in the house. Svyata comes from Dnipro and she’s staying with us for the school year. We’ve become close to her parents, especially her mom and little sister, Dunya, who lived with us for a month. She takes that fourth bedroom on the top floor, goes to the local junior high, and does gymnastics 3x a week. Juliet, Gabriel, and William are all doing great in their respective schools and studies, and other than all of us being busy there’s not a ton of family news since my last post.

I’m grateful for my career as a writer, and (hey, what do you know?) I want to give you some news about that. I have a YouTube channel and you can listen to all my books for free. It’s still new, so not all the books are up yet. But it’s here with four books up so far:

If you’d like to be notified of new audiobooks as they come out, click HERE to subscribe to my channel. The narrator, Stevie Zimmerman, is honestly fantastic.

I’ve also got a couple of books that are free or on sale. A Regrettable Proposal is free! (My publisher didn’t tell me it would be so this was a nice surprise – I was notified by a reader). You can click on the image below to access the free version.

And the paperback versions of books 2 and 3 are dirt cheap if you get them directly from the publisher. (As in $.99 cheap). A Faithful Proposal is here. And A Daring Proposal is here.

And since Christmas is soon upon us, A Yorkshire Carol will be just .99 from Nov 29 through Dec 2. You’ll have to mark it on the calendar, though, because it’s not for a few more days.

The link is here. And of course you can always listen to the book for free on my YouTube channel. I’ll be putting this one up next week. Finally, in case you missed it, A Whimsical Notion finally came out last month, kicking off the Daughters of the Gentry series.

It’s a perfect Thanksgiving read because it’s set in the fall. (Get it Here)

I’m grateful for Jesus. Despite writing comfortably about faith, I tend to shy away from statements that sound (to my own ears) on the cliché-ish side, such as the one I just uttered. And trust me, this is my own issue – I’m just being open – so I hope you won’t take offense.

But I am grateful for him because at a time in my life where I could barely manage to put my own socks on, he revealed himself to me. And I resonated with the “a bruised reed he will not break; a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” I resonated with the “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” And I resonated with “In this world you will have many troubles. But take heart. I have overcome the world.” As I get older (I just turned 53 on Monday), I realise increasingly that there is so much I cannot do – so many weaknesses, so many limitations. I’m grateful that my salvation doesn’t depend on my own efforts, and that my very life is richer and more perfect because of how Jesus lived, not how I live.

As this is a sort of spontaneous, chatty post, I think I’ll end it here. You all know by now that my posts are not regular. (You can get more regular news on my newsletter here). But it’s nice to check in from time to time and remind my readers I’m still here. I do still love my old blog, which has been a pretty big part of my life.

Let me therefore close with some seasonal wishes. Have a wonderful holiday – and month in general – as we ease into Christmas and the new year.

The post A Most Happy Thanksgiving to you appeared first on A Lady In France.

But there are many things of note. For one thing, Juliet is turning 18 in a couple of days. When I started my blog, this is what my children looked like. 

And this is what they look like now (from our recent trip to Dominican Republic).

We wanted to have this memory – this time away in the Caribbean while we had three children who were still minors and living at home. Not that my daughter is going far next year – she will be studying illustration in an art school in Paris. Gabriel is now taller than Matthieu, and William is taller than me. I confess that I allowed myself to get a little lost in the old pictures and posts from the beginning of my blog as I searched for these photos. What a great storage place for memories.

Our house construction is finally getting resolved. Remember that disaster? The abandoned construction project that we’re still making loan payments on? These are not the most wonderful pictures, but you see us here in our current state – en route to having a complete house with a bedroom for everyone plus a guest room. (The one shown on the right is my daughter’s, and all the rooms will have a mezzanine bed to give more floor space).

Apart from the 4 bedrooms we need for our family, we will end up with a guest room (new), and with the old rooms, what is supposed to be an office for me and a tiny sitting room for Bible studies or when we need to have private conversation with someone. However … given the situation in Ukraine, we’re just waiting to finish the work with the hopes that we’ll be able to host people from one of our churches in Ukraine.

They are still coming into Paris and other cities in Europe, and we’re coordinating with our sister churches to meet that need. The war is hitting close to home. We have no more oil on the shelves, apart from olive. And we now have several families (women and children) added to our church and teen ministry in Paris, along with a shared prayer list for all the husbands, sons and family they’ve left behind. We’re hunkering down to serve for the long haul.

I am writing, still writing. I have one recent release, which I love, that takes place in Waterloo. Tons of research and heart went into that one, and it was hard to let go of when it was finished. You can click on the book cover if you want to see it on Amazon. It has been getting great reviews.

I also have an upcoming release in May that I’m very excited about. It’s the last in the Clavering Chronicles series and the one that’s being distributed by Elm Hill to bookstores. This one is much lighter in tone. You can also click on this cover if you want to find it on various sales platforms.

And finally, I have a cover for a new book which is gorgeous, but which I’m having trouble writing. Matthieu and I have planned a quick trip to Lincolnshire so that I can get inspired. It’s for a new series I’m starting called Daughters of the Gentry.

What’s neat about this cover is that I hired an illustrator I admire (who did the Folio version of Georgette Heyer’s Venetia), and the portrait is one of my daughter’s classmates who was kind enough to let me snap a picture of her for the artist to paint. This whole series will have illustrated covers, and I’ve got all three models set out. My books are also now being translated into German, French, and Portuguese.

Writing really does eat up much of my time, which is why you see me less here.

Of course I’m still cooking and baking, but less so. Lately I’ve been making this strawberry yoghurt cake for when we have people over. I’m laughing at myself because my last recipe on this blog was also a variation on the traditional yoghurt cake. If you click the link, you’ll see the original recipe.

It’s the simplest thing to make if you need a cake in a pinch. You use the pot of yoghurt to measure and it all goes into one bowl, which makes it a breeze.

A yoghurt, 2 pots of sugar, 3 of flour, 3 eggs, a teaspoon each of baking powder and vanilla, and a half teaspoon of salt. Last of all, you need a pot of bland oil (harder these days without the sunflower). My kids love having chocolate chips in it (2/3 – 1 cup), and I’ve started adding this freeze-dried strawberry powder I have on hand and it’s delicious. 1 tablespoon of that if you want to try it. Into a greased round pan it goes, then into a preheated oven (at 350°F) for about 40 minutes. And there you go. So simple to make, so delicious.

One of the reasons I keep staring at my blog and missing it is that life was simpler when I was blogging and not writing books. (I mean, I was poorer, but life was simpler). I was forced to live life by blogging about it because it meant taking photos, and cooking delicious recipes that our family could then eat – and paying attention to the all moments in our family’s life, whether big or small. My life now is so much more hectic with a 2-3 books a year publishing schedule and teens who need sounding boards (us) as they forge their identities. I didn’t know life with teens would be so busy.

A few weeks ago, I decided to start taking sabbaths. On Sundays, I spend time outdoors. I can do anything in the house (even laundry), but I can’t do anything book-related or computer related (unless it’s a quick deadline thing, like approving the latest cover, which happened last Sunday). Just like blogging, it forces time to slow down. I take walks with Matthieu and listen to the kids. We watch movies, I cook better meals and spend a little time in the garden. It has been healthy.

Tomorrow is Easter when I will once again take my sabbath. We’ll go to church (now meeting without masks, all together once every two weeks, and in homes on the off-weeks). We’ll come home and I’ll make lamb, potatoes and green beans. We’ll spend time in the garden and I’ll read my latest Mimi Matthews book (actually I have an advanced copy and it’s great). We’ll eat our chocolates and remember what is good despite being conscious of what is difficult. 

In French, the word for Easter is Pâques – the same word for “passover” – and it means “passage”. The parallels here always strike me. Jesus was crucified on the passover. In Exodus, the Israelites passed from the land of slavery through water into the land of freedom. Under the new covenant, Jesus provides passage through the waters of baptism, taking us from the slavery of sin to that of redemption, freedom, and eternal life.

Matthieu has a French Chouraqui Bible, which tries to stay as close to the Hebrew language as possible, including in the New Testament (which is in Greek and Aramaic* – but there it keeps the Hebrew spirit). This means that the language is not fluid, but it’s authentic adding deeper layers to its meaning. *My husband corrected me after reading this. The OT had some Aramaic, but was mostly Hebrew. The NT is all Greek.

On Pentecost, when all the devout Jews returned to Jerusalem for the Festival of Weeks, Peter and the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit manifesting as tongues of fire. This verse in Actes 2:36-38 describes what happened at the Pentecost, 40 days after the resurrection (in traditional scripture):

The post Strawberry cake, Art school, Ukraine & Easter sabbath appeared first on A Lady In France.