A Promise in Provence


Book Description

 Lauren is at a turning point. If only she knew where to turn. Her long-term relationship with Mark is fading fast. Instead, she feels drawn to Jean-Pierre, an attractive Frenchman she’d met the previous summer. When she’s laid off from her job as a chef, she decides to go see him in Provence, France. Mark can’t get Lauren out of his heart, even though it’s been close to a year since she asked him to give her space. When she goes to France, he’s afraid he’ll lose her for good. That is, until he decides to go there, too, as a last-ditch effort to win her back. At first, Lauren is angry that Mark follows her to France. But a joint desire to help a young refugee boy leads them to work together. Lauren finds herself torn between the two men. Worse, she’s confronted with obstacles in helping the boy and even greater obstacles within herself. Prodigals in Provence and A Promise in Provence are also available as a Boxset, Love in Provence. Both books in one volume.




The Promise of Provence


Book Description

On the evening of her twenty-second wedding anniversary, Katherine Price can't wait to celebrate. But instead of receiving an anniversary card from her husband, she finds a note asking for a divorce. Fifty-five and suddenly alone, Katherine begins the daunting task of starting over. She has her friends, her aging mother, and her career to occupy her, but the future seems to hold little promise--until, after a winter of heartbreak, Katherine is persuaded to try a home exchange holiday in the South of France. In Provence, bright fields of flowers bloom below medieval hilltop villages with winding cobblestone streets. Charmed by the picturesque countryside, the breathtaking Côte d'Azur, and the enchantment-filled boulevards of Paris, Katherine feels life opening up once again. Lavender perfumes the air, and chance encounters hint at romance and passion. But memories of heartbreak and betrayal linger--and her former life waits for her back home. Can she find the courage to begin again? Revised edition: This edition of The Promise of Provence includes editorial revisions.




Finding Gilbert


Book Description

How do the unfulfilled dreams and promises of our parents shape our lives and our destinies? During the Normandy Invasion in 1944, an American lieutenant took a French orphan boy Gilbert under his wing, making sure the boy had enough to eat and giving him attention and love. As the months passed and their bond deepened, he tried unsuccessfully to adopt the boy and bring him home to America. Years later, the soldier's daughter grew up hearing her father's stories about his time in France and about the orphan Gilbert. During her childhood, the boy felt like an invisible brother, hovering in her consciousness, slightly out of focus. Fifty years after the war and two years after her father's death, she found herself compelled to write about how his stories of his time in France had influenced her life. As she journeyed to France to retrace her father's footsteps, would she be able to complete what he had left unfinished? Could she find his orphan and tell him that her father had never forgotten him? In this true story about the power of love and kindness, Covington-Carter weaves a tale that spans seven decades, beginning and ending on the shores of Normandy. In it, she discovers the role that forgotten dreams play in guiding us towards our destinies. This book is a testament to the importance of a father's love and how a caring father can change lives in ways that ripple down through the generations.




Promises to Keep


Book Description

The painful memories from her life back in Toronto will never be distant enough, but Katherine Price finds peace under the autumn sky in the South of France...and a deepening, dizzying love with Philippe. Together, they savor the delicacies and splendor of life, toasting to a future filled with happiness and hope--a life far away from the heartache they both knew so well. But during a trip to the medieval village of Entrevaux, a strange note turns into a dangerous car chase. Philippe reveals he has a troubling secret--and the couple's new life together threatens to crumble before it can begin. Now that Katherine has everything she's ever wanted, is she about to lose it all? Promises to Keep is the heartfelt second addition to award-winning author Patricia Sands's Love in Provence trilogy--and a stirring reminder that it's never too late to be joyfully surprised by love, life, or even yourself. Revised edition: This edition of Promises to Keep includes editorial revisions.




Promise at Dawn


Book Description

The author recounts the special relationship he had with his mother and explains how he worked to achieve the many goals and accomplishments she expected of him




I Promise You this


Book Description

Suddenly single after twenty-two years of marriage, the calm of Katherine Price's midlife has turned upside down. Seeking to find her true self, she took a chance on starting over. A year later, she is certain of this: she's in love with Philippe and adores his idyllic French homeland, where he wants her to live with him. But all that feels like a fantasy far removed from Toronto, where she's helping her friend Molly, hospitalized after a life-threatening accident. Staying in her childhood home full of memories, Katherine wonders: Is she really ready to leave everything behind for an unknown life abroad? And if all her happiness lies with Philippe, will it last? Can she trust in love again? Searching her heart, Katherine finds the pull of the familiar is stronger than she thought. An unexpected meeting with her ex, the first time since his cruel departure, and a stunning declaration of love from an old flame spur her introspection. With sunlit backdrops and plot twists as breathtaking as the beaches of Antibes, author Patricia Sands brings her trilogy about second chances to a provocative and satisfying close that proves that a new life just might be possible--if you're willing to let your heart lead you home.




The Beekeeper's Promise


Book Description

1938. Eliane Martin tends beehives in the garden of the beautiful Chateau Bellevue. She meets Mathieu Dubosq and falls in love for the first time, daring to hope that a happy future awaits. But France's eastern border is darkening under the clouds of war, and Eliane is separated from Mathieu in the chaos of German occupation. She makes the decision to join the Resistance and fight for France's liberty. In 2017, when Abi Howes takes a summer job at the Chateau Bellevue, she finds herself drawn to the woman's story. -- adapted from back cover




My Twenty-five Years in Provence


Book Description

From the moment Peter Mayle and his wife, Jennie, uprooted their lives in England and crossed the Channel permanently, they never looked back. Here the beloved author of A Year in Provence pays tribute to the most endearing and enduring aspects of his life in France—the charming and indelible parade of village life, the sheer beauty, the ancient history. He celebrates the café and lists some of his favorites; identifies his favorite villages, restaurants, and open-air markets; and recounts his most memorable meals. A celebration of twenty-five years of Provençal living—of lessons learned and changes observed—with his final book Mayle has crafted a lasting love letter to his adopted home, marked by his signature warmth, wit, and humor.




The Table Comes First


Book Description

Transplanted Canadian, New Yorker writer and author of Paris to the Moon, Gopnik is publishing this major new work of narrative non-fiction alongside his 2011 Massey Lecture. An illuminating, beguiling tour of the morals and manners of our present food manias, in search of eating's deeper truths, asking "Where do we go from here?" Never before have so many North Americans cared so much about food. But much of our attention to it tends towards grim calculation (what protein is best? how much?); social preening ("I can always score the last reservation at xxxxx"); or graphic machismo ("watch me eat this now"). Gopnik shows we are not the first food fetishists but we are losing sight of a timeless truth, "the table comes first": what goes on around the table matters as much to life as what we put on the table: families come together (or break apart) over the table, conversations across the simplest or grandest board can change the world, pain and romance unfold around it--all this is more essential to our lives than the provenance of any zucchini or the road it travelled to reach us. Whatever dilemmas we may face as omnivores, how not what we eat ultimately defines our society. Gathering people and places drawn from a quarter century's reporting in North America and France, The Table Comes First marks the beginning a new conversation about the way we eat now.




Drawing Lessons


Book Description

Sixty-two-year old Arianna arrives in the south of France for a two-week artists' workshop full of anticipation but burdened by guilt. Back home in Toronto, she has been living with the devastating diagnosis of her husband's dementia and the heartbreak of watching the man she has loved for decades slip away before her eyes. Encouraged by her family to take some time for herself, she has traveled to Arles to set up her easel in the same fields of poppies and sunflowers that inspired Van Gogh. Gradually, she rediscovers the inner artist she abandoned long ago. Drawing strength from the warm companionship and gentle wisdom of her fellow artists at the retreat - as well as the vitality of guest lecturer Jacques de Villeneuve, an artist and a cowboy - Arianna searches her heart for permission to embrace the life in front of her, and like the sunflowers, once again face the light.