Yesterday I got a lovely surprise in my mailbox: author copies of the gorgeous North American edition of The Paris Cooking School, published by Alcove Press!
It’s a beautiful hardback, with a great dustjacket sporting a new blurb, colour author pic and a couple of nice quotes on the back, as well as gilt writing on the internal spine.
So wonderful to hold it in my hands, especially ahead of the publication day next Tuesday, August 6, in the US and Canada!
I’m thrilled to reveal the enticingly sweet cover of the Ukrainian edition of The Paris Cooking School, which is coming out with Knygolove Publishers in Ukraine in August. I hope that Ukrainian readers love reading it as much as I loved writing it!
The Paris Cooking School comes out on August 6–not long to wait!–in the US and Canada, published by Alcove Press, and in the lead up to that, and to whet your appetite, there’s a great ‘Take Five’ interview with me on Writer Unboxed, the fabulous, award-winning US-based international writing blog. Here’s a short extract:
Q1: What’s the premise of your new book?
SM: My book, The Paris Cooking School (written under the pen-name of Sophie Beaumont) is an adult contemporary novel set, you guessed it, in Paris 😊 It features three main characters, Kate Evans, Gabi Picabea and Sylvie Morel, who are all at crossroads in their lives. Gabi and Kate have both come for the month-long course at Sylvie’s Paris Cooking School, after major crises in their lives—in Kate’s case, a bitter marriage breakup, in Gabi’s case a crippling creative block. Meanwhile, Sylvie is facing a worrying online harassment campaign targeting her business, and trouble from her commitment-shy lover Claude. What the three women find during that extraordinary April in Paris will change the course of their lives—and bring new love, too. Set against a gorgeous background of Paris in spring, and studded with delicious references to French food, it’s a novel that Australian readers have already taken to their hearts, and which I hope North American readers will just as much! The book comes out in the US and Canada on August 6, published by lovely Alcove Press.
You can read all the interview here.
To all my North American readers: I’m thrilled to announce that for one week only, from July 10 to July 17, The Paris Cooking School is included in Barnes and Noble’s fabulous Tale for the Ages–wait, no, that should be Sale for the Pages!! In this great pre-order promotion, you can get 25 percent off, including print, audiobook and ebook formats. The perfect opportunity to grab your own copy early! See pic below for details.
The Paris Cooking School comes out in the USA and Canada on August 6, published by lovely Alcove Press. Very exciting!
Well, this is such a lovely surprise: the first advance review(on Instagram) of the North American edition of The Paris Cooking School! The book is out in the USA and Canada on August 6, published by Alcove Press (and distributed by Penguin Random House). Exciting!
If you’re in the US or Canada around that time, and you spot the novel in a bookshop, do let me know and post a pic 🙂
And for my North American friends, here’s a link to preorder if you’re interested: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/768597/the-paris-cooking-school-by-sophie-beaumont/
I’ve just heard that the Portuguese edition of The Paris Cooking School has just been published, in Portugal of course, and is now in bookshops there. Very exciting!
I was interviewed recently for the fabulous bilingual blog, Matilda Marseillaise, and the interview has now been published, in both French and English (I spoke to Matilda in French and she translated back into English). Centering on The Paris Cooking School and its influences, it also focuses on my background and experiences, the creative process, and Paris itself. Here’s a short extract:
The book has three narratives, you might say, because the book tells the stories of the three main characters. Did you write them in the order we read them? Did you write separating the chapters of each character’s story?
No, I wrote it chronologically. So I knew I wanted to write one chapter from Gaby’s point of view and then one chapter from Sylvie’s point of view, and one chapter from Kate’s point of view.
And then, at the beginning, so in the first chapter, you’re introduced to the 3 characters, they’re in the same chapter, but then they each have a chapter until the end when they all come back together. I always write chronologically. I know there are writers who write a chapter here, a chapter there and then they put it all together. But I can’t.
I can’t because my experience is almost like watching a film and it has to unfold chronologically. I can’t simply make a flash here, a flash there and then put them together to make an image. I have to follow the story and so I say, OK, today I’m going to write the chapter from Gaby’s or Kate’s point of view and that’s it, that’s where it’s going to happen.
Often what I do is, I’ll go for a little 5-minute walk or something. It’s just to start the first paragraph of the chapter I’m going to write that day and then there it is, so Gaby does this, or Kate does that. I even talk to myself about everything. It’s a good thing there aren’t too many people passing by, otherwise they’d think I’d lost my mind!
You can read the whole interview here.
Seems that The Paris Cooking School has been making a prominent appearance in airports around the country, and friends have been sending me pictures of it to illustrate that! Here’s a selection, just for fun 🙂
I’m delighted to say that the audio edition of The Paris Cooking School is now out, and available on all audio book platforms. It’s very engagingly narrated by Anthea Greco and produced by Wavesound. At the moment it’s available as a digital download, but a CD version will also be available later.
I love audio books and it’s so exciting to hear my novel in this very appealing form!
Had an absolutely wonderful time at the absolutely gorgeous local launch, in my home town of Armidale, of The Paris Cooking School , which was held at beautiful Cafe Patisserie Armidale, in collaboration with fantastic Reader’s Companion. A big, warm, lively crowd attended, champagne(the real thing!) flowed, gorgeous mini strawberry tarts and mini eclairs created by master patissier Nathan Walker disappeared like lightning, and many many books were bought! was very busy signing and chatting to all the lovely people who came, some who I know personally, many others who don’t know me but were intrigued by the sound of the book, which they had heard about from the local press, radio and word of mouth!
Thank you so much to Nathan and Enora from Cafe Patisserie, to Michelle from Reader’s Companion, and to everyone who came. You made it such a superlative event and I am still on cloud nine about it!
Feathers of the Firebird 