Hello friends-from-a-time-gone-by … a time when I blogged several times a week. There are moments in my life like today that make me want to pick up the pen (ok, open the Mac) and connect with you because the world is lovely (despite it all …) and I’m at peace and I can breathe a bit.
There are other times when I can’t even imagine contemplating a blog post, and most of those times have to do with books that need to be written on a deadline and other crazy life events. So I’ll tell you about all the book news that is keeping me so busy at the bottom. That way if you’re not interested you’ll have already gotten the essentials that brought you here: the latest news from yours truly (that won’t have much to do with recipes today – and maybe only a tiny bit to do with faith).
Family news
Juliet, my classically trained ballerina daughter is in the 11th grade, and she decided to stop taking ballet and shave her head in the back for a punk look. (For the moment it’s hidden unless she wears a ponytail but she’s ready to go even shorter). She is an artist. She draws fantasy comic books and has done so in every scrap of spare time since she was little. She has started at a private school that can accommodate more of the art training to prepare her for university. The high school is pretty ordinary looking (but small).
However, the elementary school is housed in this building.
It’s just magnificent, isn’t it? This is not my photo – it’s the school’s. It’s so rare to get snow like this in the Paris area. We decided to send our boys there next year, as well, because they have a well-rounded education program as opposed to the French system, which is very Math-Science oriented and works for kids who fit into a mould. My boys actually do well with Math and Science but I still think they would be happier at the private school. There are social internships, business internships, and they prepare theatre shows. The program is similar to my public school experience growing up in Upstate NY but vastly different from France.
Gabriel is now 15 and he’s doing great. He’s taller than my husband, is doing well in school, plays trumpet – and I think I mentioned he got baptised last summer in the glacial waters of the Alps. You need only scroll back for photos to see how far we’ve come. He was 3 when I started this blog. William is 12 and he was only a year when I began. He’s going through a tougher growing phase, and one Gabriel went through about the same age. I think a change in school will be great for him. He’s got a very curious mind and is a profound thinker. He spends hours and hours watching shows about animals.
This is us 2020 style.
NEWS FLASH
My husband interrupted my post to call me to come watch the president’s inauguration. I cried happy tears. And when President Biden said that people were watching all over the world, I waved at the TV. My family and I were part of the celebration all the way from France.
As for many, it’s been a challenging year. I have it easy in the sense that people in France generally respect the mandate to wear masks in public spaces and we have kept our death rates from multiplying exponentially. It’s also easy because I’m a writer and both my husband and I work from home. But isolation is a very real thing, despite having a healthy family and lots of connection through zoom.
I miss restaurants (not that we even went all that much), I miss church and seeing people in person instead of over zoom. I miss going to a gym and inviting people over. I think about how much harder it is for people who don’t have a warm family environment or financial security. I pray for these things for those who suffer.
It’s been hard to write my latest book, which required a lot of research. The story covers British parliament in 1819, but not in a dry dusty way. I mean, it is a romance after all. And for a romance you need to have happy, light thoughts – to be inspired in order to inspire others. I have not been. Between the current events and my difficult manuscript that seemed at times impossible to write, I was working under what felt like an oppressive cloud.
A cloud that somehow lifted today. It’s probably the combination of having finished my book and sent it off to the editor, of electing a president who will uphold the constitution, and of potentially, possibly being able to move forward on a house project that’s been sitting dormant for 5 years after our construction company abandoned us. So a new wind of change and hope seems to be blowing, despite of how hard it is for so many in many areas.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:19
Since I last wrote, there have been lots of little things that happened. We finally got new couches to replace our 20-year couches.
(The plastic curtain in the back is part of our abandoned house project. Drafty attic with no insulation). The couches are not nearly as comfortable as our old ones, but we gave up on trying to find French ones that are as plush as the old Jennifer convertible ones. At least they’re pretty.
We also celebrated our wedding anniversary in a Paris hotel the night before France declared a new lockdown. Quarantine began the next day.
And here you see me reading my latest book (photo opp) because my wedding anniversary was the same day as my latest release, His Disinclined Bride. The book came into Paris with me.
BOOKS
That naturally leads me to tell you what has been keeping me so occupied all these months – what fills up my days.
In 2020, I put out 3 books, and I’ve got a fourth coming out in March of this year. My writing pace is much faster, but I still have a lot of input from editors, critique partners , and ARC readers to make sure the quality is the absolute best I can do. For those of you who have been with me for a long time, I hope you’ll consider following this new venture of mine. Maybe you’ll end up liking the genre, even if you’re not familiar with it. It’s like Bridgerton without the sex.
If any of these books catch your fancy, you can click on the cover to get to their sales page. And I’ve put the links up of the ones that are on audio, too.
A Faithful Proposal is the second in the Memorable Proposals series, published by Cedar Fort. The publishing company will be redesigning the covers to make them harmonious, especially since the last in the series, A Daring Proposal, will come out mid-September. They are also working on the audiobooks right now. This one came out in February, so was actually written in 2019.
A Fall from Grace was published mid-April and it’s my first indie-published Regency. The book hit #1 in the Regency Romance category on Amazon and has stayed in the top 100 ranking for the last 10 months. It’s now on audio, narrated by Stevie Zimmerman. It’s the first in the Clavering Chronicles series, and came out mid-April. And it’s on audio everywhere, but here are a couple places to find it. Author’s Direct, Chirp, Apple, Audible, in addition to all the other audio platforms including your local library.
My next one to come out was His Disinclined Bride at the end of October, which I mentioned earlier. This one also hit #1 in the Regency Romance category and has stayed ranked really well in that category since it came out. It’s part of the Seasons of Change series, which is a multi-author project with other talented authors. This book is also on audio. Author’s Direct, Chirp, Apple in addition to all the other audio platforms including your local library. And! His Disinclined Bride is on sale for $1.99 on Apple iTunes for two days!
And finally, my most recent one is the one I’ve been working on that’s scheduled to come out March 1st. Philippa Holds Court is on pre-order, and it’s the sequel to A Fall from Grace. This will be on audio too, as soon as I can get the finalised manuscript to my narrator so she can begin the work. As a reminder, you can read the blurbs and review on the Amazon pages by clicking on the covers of these books, or just type Jennie Goutet in Amazon and see all my books, including my memoir and 2 contemporary romances.
So yes, I’m no longer “just” a blogger, although I do love this space to come and share about my life here. I have less time for the food posts and in-depth posts on faith or travel, although it doesn’t mean I won’t do them anymore. But if you came just for me, you can still find me over on my newsletter and through my voice in each one of the books I write.
I’m still light-hearted from having completed a difficult novel that had bogged me down for months. And I’m filled with hope and joy from watching the inauguration and by the fact that God always gives us new beginnings no matter where we are in life (even if today didn’t feel like a victory for you).
Above all, may you have joy and peace in your corner of the world that comes from something deeper and more long-lasting than what is visible to the eye – something that cannot perish, spoil or fade. xo
