I’m in lovely Seattle now—such a beautiful city. They’ve had non-stop overcast skies and rain for weeks (months!), I’m told, and my event fell on the second day of sun, so I was surprised and pleased that some people came out to my reading.
One thing I’ve learned: when it comes to book events, there is always weather. It will invariably be too hot, too cold, too stormy, too wet or simply too nice for people to go out. (I don’t blame them: I’m the same way.) And if it isn’t the weather, there’s a sports event, a concert, or it’s grad night in town. So all the more reason to applaud the fans and friends and family who so loyally and enthusiastically show up … they make it so worthwhile.
Last night, I had the chance to see San Miguel friend Susan Rushton and her dear mother Ruby. Such a treat! As well, some truly ardent long-time fans. It was wonderful: virtual hugs to all.
Today I fly to San Diego. I’ve fought off a threatening cold (yay), but suffered my first injury: a wrenched left-hand. Thankfully not my signing hand. Fat Sharpies are excellent ergonomically in that respect: I feel I could sign books forever. In Sharpie fervor, I’ve now taken to offering readers a selection of colors: hot pink is the run-away favorite.
It was a two-and-a-half hour drive from Denver to Edwards, but well worth it. The Bookworm is one of the best bookstores I’ve seen, and they really know how to put on an event: great advertising, good wine, exceptionally tasty appetizers.
Okay, this may sound silly, but I discovered the first sign of their savvy advertising in the washroom:
What a perfect place for an ad! It’s a universal truth known to all bookstore owners that book browsing and the need to use a washroom are mysteriously yet biologically linked. (Seinfeld confirmed this in a skit.)
It was a great audience. Many of them had already read—and loved!—Mistress of the Sun.
There were 51 in attendance, a number of them from book clubs. Here is another mother/daughter portrait: Therese and her lovely daughter, Rachel.
Another mother told me that she was looking forward to going to Paris with her daughter. They had read the Trilogy and would be tracing Josephine‘s route. What did I suggest? I recommended that she read Walks through Napoleon & Josephine’s Paris by Diana Reid Haig. This is a gorgeous book, recently given to me by a very special person, Janet Park Datema (more on Janet later), in St. Louis. Another good guide I recommend to Trilogy tourists (of whom there are a number!) is You Go Girl Paris. The authors list many Josephine B. sites to see.
All-in-all, a fabulous evening! Thank you, Bookworms all.
Shauna Singh Baldwin and I have known each other for a long time, through email and our writing, but have only met two times. She gave a moving and elegant introduction to my talk in her hometown, Milwaukee (a beautiful city).
This is her introduction:
“Many of us are familiar with Sandra Gulland’s historical fiction from her highly acclaimed, and beautifully-written Josephine Trilogy. In The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine published in 1995, Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe, published in 1998, and the Last Great Dance on Earth published in 2000—Sandra brought Josephine Bonaparte back to life. And instead of a greedy schemer who two-timed Napoleon, we come to know an intelligent woman making the kind of choices and compromises women make every day, even today. The Josephine B. trilogy, has sold over a million worldwide, is now published in thirteen languages and in fifteen countries.
Eight years after the last book in the Josephine trilogy, Sandra brings to life another French woman obscured and reviled by historians, Louise de la Valliere, mistress of the Sun King. Along the way, we meet Molière and Racine as they perform their dramas for the king, and listen to LaFontaine as he wrote his fables. With Louise, we watch Finance Minister Fouquet’s arrogance laid low, and the building of Versailles. Again the court of Louis XIV dazzles us, with the intensity of its joiedevivre and sheer excess. Louise is a superb horsewoman besides being a woman of verve and grace, and her riding and hunting endears her to the king.
To no one’s surprise, within a week of its publication in Canada, Mistress of the Sun was on Maclean’s national best-selling fiction list and remained there for more than two months, rising to #2.
Sandra Gulland, born in Florida and raised in Berkeley California doesn’t live in seventeenth century France. Instead she lives just over the border in Killaloe, about 50 miles west of Ottawa, Canada and spends half her year in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She also lives on the web at www.SandraGulland.com—a wonderful web site—has a very active Facebook page, and writes a very interesting blog called Notes on the Writing Life. I don’t know if she can stand on a cantering horse like Louise de la Valliere, but she’s been riding enough years that I wouldn’t put it past her.
Sandra and I have been cyber friends since 1999, and this is only the second time we have met, yet her support and inspiration have often opened new paths for me. Back in 1998 when I was debating taking US citizenship, she took the time to write to me, explaining dual citizenship. When I was researching my second novel, The Tiger Claw, the story of a Muslim woman set in WWII France, she gave me wonderful advice on conducting meticulous historical research—yes, she should know! We keep meeting on online discussion groups like historicalnovelsociety.org and Readerville and I think we have been engaged on a similar project: illuminating and bringing alive herstory as opposed to history.
So I am delighted and honored to introduce a dear friend and spectacular writer.
The event at Anderson’s Bookshop in beautiful Naperville, IL, was wonderful! Fantastic group. Among many others: Lady Bonheaur (who has read Mistress of the Sun already, but not—yet—the Trilogy), Jennifer (who wept so hard on a plane finishing the Trilogy that the man next to her asked if she was all right), Janice (who exclaimed so emotionally that the Trilogy were the best books she has ever read she made me tear up, as well), Wendy (who followed Josephine’s story to Paris), Cristine (whose cat is named Josephine Bonaparte), and these three wonderful sisters, Laura, Anne, and Beth (“And there are two more sisters!” they told me).
Laura had a rare complete set of the Canadian hardcover editions, one of which she found in Germany, through eBay. I was so excited chatting with this wonderful trio of sisters that I messed up signing their books!
Hats off to this wonderful bookstore. Fantastic staff.
