#34: “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” – Ernest Hemingway

Advance praise for Paris Adieu

Coming out December 16, 2011

After A Moveable Feast, the top book for those who love to read about Paris

“Like all of Gaston’s work, Paris Adieu is full of fun and charm. After A Moveable Feast, it is the top book for anyone who remembers all of the frivolity and seriousness that go with the French and the City of Light.”

Ariana Kaleta, Baroness von Trautenegg

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Fascinating, Glamorous, and Entertaining

“Paris Adieu makes a fun book for my book club. The story of Ava coming of age in Paris is as fascinating, glamorous and as entertaining as the City of Light itself.”

Victoria Kann, New York Times bestselling author of Pinkalicious and the Pink Pumpkin

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Well-founded in Intellectual Truth

 “If you have been young in Paris, or wish you had been, this is the book for you.  Gaston’s style paints a vivid portrait – breezy, but well-founded in intellectual truth.”

Ariane Csonka Comstock, author of The Young People’s Guide to Opera and Palm Beach Wit & Wisdom

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Elegant, Sexy, and Almost Impossibly Witty

“Literate men will love Rozsa Gaston’s elegant, sexy, and almost impossibly witty look inside the hidden world of women (and will fall in love with the author).  Buy this book – and keep it on your nightstand.”

Laurence Siegel, winner of the Graham and Dodd and EDHEC-Robeco awards for investment writing

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Coming of Age in Paris

“Ava Fodor is young, funny and ready for trouble, particularly when it comes to French men.  From the opening pages, Ava engages with her wry voice. This is a story that’s certain to touch a chord with readers who may remember their own first efforts to find love.”

Susan Breen, author of The Fiction Class

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Fasten your Seatbelt for a Sensual Ride

“Fasten your seatbelt for a sensual ride through a young American woman’s journey through France. Learning about the pleasures of life, from tasty food to passionate awakening with a French lover, is a feast for the senses.”

Susie Piturro

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Sexy Page-Turner with a French Twist

“With vivid detail and humor, Gaston takes readers straight into the heart of Paris, where we smell pastries from the corner bakery and meander through famous parks and museums. We meet the French lover who shows Ava how to feel ‘comfortable in her own skin.’ Throughout, Gaston writes with a deep appreciation for sensuality that will keep readers attentive to Ava’s every adventure.”

Kim Nagy, Executive Editor

Wild River Review

Author of The Triple Goddess Trials

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  Sexy, Witty, and Charming

“Sexy, witty, and charming, Paris Adieu takes you away from everyday life, back to a time when everything was new and adventurous.  This is a great read for any book club as well as something to give your life a little romantic flavor.”

Kathy Chattoraj, visual artist

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Paris Adieu is a must read 

“Paris Adieu is a must read  for every woman, young and old, as a reminder of how we evolved into who we are today. Naiveté was such a blessing, wasn’t it?”

Terri Valentine, author of Sands of Time and Sea Dream

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Couldn’t put it down

“I didn’t want to say adieu to Ava’s adventures in Paris. Ava untangles herself from her grandmother’s meddlesome web in Connecticut, to find herself bedazzled by Paris, its culture and its people. As the pages and lovers turn quickly, Ava metamorphosizes from naïve, young know-nothing to a creative, strong-minded, independent woman –  Voilà!”

 Mary Agoglia

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What wine would you sip while contemplating this quote?

Well, darling, we are talking about Paris here, so we’ll go with a French wine, naturellement.  And if I were French, to be at all serious, I’d pick a red. But not being French nor particularly serious, I would sip something sparkling and white while contemplating my time in the City of Light. Perhaps a Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin as long as someone gifts me with a bottle.  The perfect balance of delicacy with power at about $42 per signature orange box.

Thank you chère Jo-Anne Ford for enhancing our new year’s eve 2010 celebration with this wonderful gift.

 

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#33: “The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.” – Khalil Gibran

Rozsa’s weekly book excerpt

From Paris Adieu (2011) by Rozsa Gaston

Coming out December 16, 2011

“You saw her recently?” Arnaud asked, his voice for once not booming out, dominating the conversation.

“She passed through Chavignol about a month ago,” Pierre said.

“Did she ask about me?” Arnaud’s tone was serious, almost reverential. I remained quiet as a mouse, tiptoeing behind the men.

“I can’t remember,” Pierre replied.

“You can’t remember what Mélanie said to you? I don’t believe it,” Arnaud said.

“We were at the boulangerie. It was crowded – we spoke in passing.” Pierre looked around, spotting me then clearing his throat.

I walked quickly ahead, pretending not to have heard anything. My blood boiled to think of how vulnerable Arnaud’s voice had sounded when he’d asked if whoever Mélanie was had asked about him. I’d never heard Arnaud utter a single word to me in a similar tone, not even when he’d said je t’adore.

Suddenly, I didn’t adore him back at all. My feelings for him crumbled, as the scales fell from my eyes. He was carrying a torch for someone named Mélanie. And whoever she was, she wasn’t me.

“Always maintain straight posture at critical moments,” my grandmother’s voice rang out inside. I straightened up, flicking my ponytail back to ward off the gnat of insecurity now buzzing behind me. Then it hit me – Mélanie was the name of the woman in the photo at Arnaud’s country house.

Something tugged at my hair. I ignored it. Again, I tried to catch their conversation.

Arnaud had realized I was within earshot. Changing course, he began to describe a herd of elephants he’d seen in Cambodia.

I felt another tug. This time, I turned my face to the left, where Pierre’s warm, brown eyes caught mine. I lowered my own quickly, my pulse racing. He had been the one pulling my ponytail. Meanwhile, Arnaud droned on about yet another fascinating, obscure thing that had happened to him in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

Pierre lowered his eyes back at me and made an inaudible ‘shhh’ with his mouth.

My smile was discreet, unnoticed by Arnaud, who was now waxing rhapsodic about how baby elephants call for their mothers. Whatever.

It occurred to me things that happen to us don’t really matter as much when they are not shared. If Arnaud had been watching baby elephants bawl for their mothers with me, for example, we would have shared the memory of such a charming scene forever, woven into the fabric of our relationship, however long it lasted.

Instead, it would be Arnaud telling his baby elephant story to others throughout the years, regaling strangers in bars with tales of wondrous exploits he underwent alone. So what? It all seemed like a big nothing to me.

“And then the female elephants all form a circle around the babies and bellow at the male elephants who try to charge the watering hole before the babies have had their drink. Yak, yak, yak, blah blah …” Arnaud was now completely caught up in his anecdote, oblivious to Pierre’s eyes flickering over mine, engaged, attentive, and fully present in the moment. “Be here now” was what Arnaud had preached to me.

But Pierre practiced it.

My mind wandered back to George Berkeley, the eighteenth-century empiricist who’d said “to be is to be perceived.” He was one of my favorite philosophers. In my college philosophy classes, he’d been one of the few I’d fully wrapped my brain around, along with Hegel and his three-part dialectic. As a songwriter I could really get behind the concept of three – verse, chorus, bridge were the three components of just about every pop song ever created. It was inarguably a pleasing number, both to the mind and to the senses. No wonder God had chosen it to represent Himself.

But back to Berkeley’s way of thinking – let’s just say that Arnaud hadn’t really seen those baby elephants, or heard them crying for their mothers, or seen the ladies get huffy with the males who tried to drink before the kids had their fill. Who would ever know? Since Arnaud witnessed this whole scene by himself, then who was to say it actually happened?

That’s what Berkeley would ask and that was what I was asking now. If Arnaud chose to live his life in a way largely unshared by anyone who remained constant in it, then was there meaning in what he experienced? Frankly – who cared?

Paris Adieu (2011) by Rozsa Gaston

What wine would you sip while contemplating this quote?

Undoubtedly, something subtle. White, with great delicacy and finesse, would do nicely.  I recommend a 2009 Tariquet Sauvignon from France’s Gascogny region.  It’s fine, floral notes serve as the perfect aperitif to lead one to the threshold of one’s mind, there to tarry until inspiration hits.  About $10.99 a bottle.

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#32: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.” – Henry David Thoreau

Rozsa’s weekly book excerpt

From Running from Love (2011) by Rozsa Gaston

New York is no place for a young girl on her own.”

Coming out Dec. 2011

“So I found. I ended up being a nanny for a family that moved to Connecticut when their third child came along. I moved with them to Greenwich but after a short time realized I didn’t want to be a member of the serving class in this town.”

“Go on.” Jude knew only too well what her reference points were. He’d straddled that fine line as a child, crossing over it as an adult. But he never forgot where he came from, which sometimes got in the way of where he aimed to go. It dawned on him that Jordan Marshall had some great insights for him, not just on how to marry money.

“It was the ruling class that interested me,” she continued. “I quit my job, but the family liked me, so I lived in their pool house in exchange for babysitting on the new nanny’s days off, took the Lilly job and met Charlie. The rest is history – voilà.” She gestured as if displaying a Delahaye car.  A thick pink and gold bangle bracelet dangled from the wrist of one slim, tanned arm. Jude recognized the inimitable Lilly brand.

He sat back, admiring her. She was artwork. Self-invented, self-propelled kinetic art.  No wonder Max had married her.

But she lacked the wound. Even though now he knew she had it. She’d done such a great job of concealing it from everyone that it no longer figured as part of her personality. Even with the story she’d just shared with him, she didn’t look in the slightest vulnerable. Au contraire.

“I congratulate you,” Jude said, quietly. “You’ve got a lot of balls to be telling me all this. What if I go around the corner and repeat it to someone?”

“Be my guest. I never hid a thing about where I come from from Charlie. I could tell him I like to kill baby birds for sport and he’d be fine with it. He told me it was love at first sight and not a thing I said or did after that first car ride together could make him change his mind.”

Was that infatuation or love? Jude knew enough to know he didn’t know the answer himself. Whatever it was, it had worked for Jordan Marshall. Splendidly.

“So how long have you been married?” he continued.

“Five years. Long enough for love at first sight to wear off, in case you were wondering.” She gave him a wry smile.

“What replaced it?”

“Let’s see – mutual appreciation, mutual interests. I scratch his back well, he scratches mine. Also- -”  She hesitated, cocking her head.

“Also?”

“I love him.” She looked straight into Jude’s eyes.

“Like I said before, congratulations.” He didn’t doubt her. He imagined her version of love might be different from his, but it appeared to work for her, so he didn’t question it.

From Running from Love (2011) by Rozsa Gaston

What glass of wine would you sip while contemplating this quote?

When I imagine the life I plan to live, in this or some other lifetime, I go with white wine.  Something dancing, light, and flower-fragranced – perhaps a 2007 Domaine du Tariquet Classic Ugni Blanc  – Colombard.  Reasonably priced at around $10.99 per bottle.

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