Exciting! The Paris Cooking School will be coming out in Germany next year, in May, published by Droemer Knaur . It’s got a new title–Zweite Chancen à la Carte (Second Chances à la Carte), with the subheading of Die kleine Kochschule in Paris (The little cooking school in Paris) and a new cover. And here that cover is, looking gorgeous!
In very nice news, The Paris Cooking School has now been republished in B format, which is smaller in size than the original format but just as lovely, with the AWW Great Read sticker on the front too! It’s in all the shops now and retails at $24.99.
It’s the official publication day today, August 6, of the North American edition of The Paris Cooking School! It’s a lovely hardback production, published by Alcove Press, and distributed by Penguin Random House throughout the US and Canada. Here’s hoping it lands in the hands of many many readers who take it to their hearts!
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!
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!
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!
Absolutely delighted to see in The Australian newspaper today that my contribution, as Sophie Beaumont, to their annual Summer Cookbook feature, has been published! The theme this year was ‘My Last Meal’ 😁 and I have contributed a description of a menu plus a recipe for the centrepiece dish, a delectable Paris-style roast chicken.
Thrilled with the positioning too–the piece is flagged on the front page, just under their masthead, and has a full page inside–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.
There’s a really nice interview with me on writer and reviewer Cindy L Spear’s blog, about The Paris Cooking School, writing, food, and other matters! I really enjoyed doing it, her questions were really interesting. Here’s a short extract:
You can read the whole interview here.
Feathers of the Firebird 