Paris Fiction

French Lessons: A Q & A with Author Ellen Sussman

couple in Paris FranceInterview by Linda Donahue

Three Americans – an expat mom with two small children, a bereaved French teacher and the husband of a film star –  spend a day traipsing through Paris with their French tutors.The lessons they learn, however, have little to do with language and everything to do with life and love. Such is the premise of Ellen Sussman’s second novel, French Lessons. (more…)


Cheri and the Last of Cheri by Colette

After seeing the movie (starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Friend and Kathy Bates), we just had to read the book by the famous French author, Colette. Like most writers of her era, Colette knew how to use the turn of the phrase to evoke a response from the reader. And this book is full of the elegant language used in a far more civilized era. The improbable romance of a beautiful-but-aging Paris courtesan and her 30-years-younger lover, the bon vivant Chéri, is both heartwarming and tragic.