Cannonball Read 15

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Florand’s Formula Doesn’t Quite Work This Time

Trust Me by Laura Florand

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An American Commando and Parisian pastry chef? Whyever not? More time spent with some of the world’s finest pastry chefs? Yes, please. Laura Florand’s frequent theme of learning to be brave in new ways or discovering that you already are? Absolutely! Trust Me is the third book in Florand’s Paris Nights trilogy, each of which marries up a pastry chef or chocolatier heroine and a covert ops hero, including All for You and Chase Me.  This was the least successful of the three books for me and […]

Lavender’s Blue, Dilly Dilly, Lavender’s Green

A Kiss in Lavendar by Laura Florand

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Short Version: I liked Laura Florand’s A Kiss in Lavender, though it felt more serious than other books in the La Vie en Roses series. The love story was heartfelt, the happy ending earned, and it had a substantial, forthright hero and a deeply vulnerable, but assertive heroine with the heart of a lion. I’ve read it twice now and while it’s not as swoony as some Florand, it has a kind of grounded solidity that I appreciate. For the Long Version, including a mondering […]

Good, But Not Great? I’ll Take It

A Crown of Bitter Orange by Laura Florand

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I miss Laura Florand! She’s been taking a well-earned break from a prodigious output of swoon-inducing and charming contemporary romances set in the worlds of pastry, chocolate, and perfumery. Her great gift as a romance writer is in creating the heady intensity of small romantic moments, as well as portraying elements of sexual tension and anticipation. Creating characters, she excels at people who balance each other out, often providing a security or grounding that one of them has lacked.  I’m hoping Florand will return with her […]

A Return Trip to the South of France and its Flower Fields

A Wish Upon Jasmine (La Vie en Roses #2) by Laura Florand

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Last fall I picked up the first book in the La Vie en Roses series, Once Upon a Rose. Due to some ridiculous writing by the New York Times at about the same time, my review of that book is mostly subsumed by my rage about the way genre writing is discussed by major reviewers. However, I found much to be enjoyed in Laura Florand’s writing, and was excited to return to the South of France for a little refueling between One of Us is […]

Another breezy contemporary romance from the south of France

A Kiss in Lavender by Laura Florand

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Lucien Rosier grew up in a very tight knit group of cousins, with a strong sense of family. So when at eighteen, he discovered that he was in fact illegitimate, and not actually a Rosier, he ran away and joined the French Foreign Legion, where he crafted himself a new identity and support network of fellow soldiers. Fifteen years later, a determined woman has managed to locate him and figure out who he once used to be. His great-aunt wants to give him a legacy […]

I Don’t Need the New York Times to Give Me Permission to Think Critically About a Billion Dollar Genre, When They So Obviously Cannot

Once Upon A Rose (La Vie en Roses #1) by Laura Florand

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One sometimes needs a palate cleanser. If that one is me, that is almost always a Romance novel. I am one of the millions of people who read, enjoy, and think about the genre, its tropes, and look forward to the reliability of a happy ending. (With the exception of a few descriptors I am an amazingly average Romance reader.) The world around us is falling apart quicker than we can patch the cracks. Sometimes we need to refuel with a guarantee. I finished this […]



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