Coming soon!

 


I’m so excited to announce that my novel Hearts at Dawn will be published in Spring 2021!


Here's what it's about: 


History and magic intertwine in a fairytale retelling that will capture the hearts of Beauty and the Beast fans.

 

Hope helps you endure. Love will break the spell.

 

Paris, 1870. As the Franco-Prussian War enters its desperate final months, the capital transforms from a splendid metropolis into a city under siege. Lavish meals change to rations, pigeons deliver letters, and two destinies will collide, challenged by a seemingly unbreakable curse. 


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Every night, New York aristocrat Orin Rush transforms into a monster. After learning that a human heart is the only way to break the curse, he keeps himself carefully distant from anyone he might hurt. 

 

Can he lift the enchantment without taking a life?

 

His search for answers leads him to Paris.


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Every day, free-spirited Claire Turin photographs the people and animals of Paris. Fascinated by the city she loves, her greatest dream is a secret she keeps in her apartment. Her greatest fear is the emptiness of night, when she thinks of the family she’s lost. 

 

She’s never loved anyone else. Maybe she never will.

 

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Will Paris and its people survive the hardship of the Siege? Will Orin break the curse? And will two hearts who’ve never known love awaken in the City of Light?

 


 


 Available soon in ebook or print format via Amazon.

 

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I’ll be using this blog to share some of the amazing things I discovered while researching daily life during the 1870 Siege of Paris. I'll also post photos and stories of my favorite places in the present-day City of Light.

 


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Soon after the Siege of Paris ended on January 28, 1871, many enterprising souls started selling souvenirs.   Most of these were things you’d expect: memoirs, photo albums of ruins, postcards, commemorative medallions and such.   In fact, even during the Siege itself, a number of people sold what they claimed were souvenirs from the battlefields, including Prussian helmets. Some of these helmets may have been real, but in his amazing book, La vie à Paris pendant le siège 1870-1871 , Victor Debuchy includes an account of a secret manufacturer of fake ones. Fragments of shells from bombed buildings were also a commonly sold souvenir. Many of these  seem to have been real, since they rained down on Paris for about a month at the end of the Siege (causing miraculously few casualties, all things considered).   The idea of souvenirs might appear shockingly modern, but they actually have a long history. For instance, in the Middle Ages, pilgrims would wear medallions from the holy sites they’
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Paris, December, 1870: Under siege by the Prussians since September 19, the city has run out of a number of basic cooking ingredients, including most common sources of meat (cat, rat, dog, horse, and for the extremely wealthy, zoo animals, are usually substitutes), as well as milk and cheese.  Flour is also in short supply; the bread distributed by the city’s boulangeries is becoming a repugnant mix of assorted grains, dried peas, and even straw.   So what can you make for Christmas dinner?   Christmas of 1870 is considered one of the saddest in Paris's history. Besieged residents couldn’t leave the city to visit or reunite with family and friends, and food and heat were in short supply. Still, many citizens must have made the most of it.   We have a few menus that have survived from this time (yes, restaurants stayed open during the Siege - this is Paris, after all), including the most famous, that of the restaurant Voisin, which shows an array of different meat options on the men
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