It's Publication Day!! Take a Walk With Me Through France
It’s here at last! Publication day in Australia for THE MADEMOISELLE ALLIANCE! (Apologies to those of you in other countries who have to wait a couple of weeks or even longer). The book I started writing in November 2022, the book that I thought about for at least a few months before I typed the very first sentence, is now available in bookshops for people to read! Woo hoo!
Sometimes, publication day can feel like a bit of an anti-climax—you get up in the morning and do all the usual things. Not this time! I’ve already had 3 events with readers in my hometown of Perth and, this morning, rather than doing all the usual things, I’m getting on a plane to Brisbane for tonight’s launch day event with Avid Reader.
Gosh, it’s nice to get out from behind the desk and meet lots of readers. It’s almost like market research, if such a corporate phrase can ever be applied to books, because every reader I meet tells me something about my books, whether it be their favourite character, their favourite of my novels, their favourite cover, the one book they didn’t like as much—yes, readers are always honest!—who they’ve recommended my books to and whether that person is now a fan as well. I love hearing all of this because I get to revisit characters and books and covers, I get to understand why certain things really resonated with readers, and I think all of that flows into my subconscious mind where the next book ideas sit, waiting to be let out!
If you do attend one of my events over the next month or so, please come and chat to me in the signing queue. Bring as many books as you like for me to sign, and don’t be afraid to tell me which one is your favourite—although I’m almost sure it will become THE MADEMOISELLE ALLIANCE after you’ve read it!
A reminder of dates for those outside Australia: THE MADEMOISELLE ALLIANCE is published in North America on April 8. In the UK, it’s published as THE PARIS CODE in ebook on April 1, with the paperback to follow on March 1, 2026.
In a moment I’m going to tell you about the research trip I took to France in 2022 to visit many of the places where Marie-Madeleine Fourcade—the real-life French Resistance leader whose story I’m telling in THE MADEMOISELLE ALLIANCE—had her resistance network headquarters, or where significant moments in her life took place during the war. But first, I wanted to say hello to all the new subscribers who’ve signed up over the past week. It’s so lovely to have you here!
The Bijoux community keeps getting bigger and bigger and I love having this wonderful place on the internet where I can interact with you properly and write about things that don’t fit into my books, or are too long and detailed for social media.
Today’s post, if you’re new, is my monthly digest, which keeps you up to date with my author news, events, giveaways, what I’m working on, book recommendations and lots more. If you missed my two earlier posts for the month of March, which are normally just for paid subscribers, I’ve unlocked them this month for everyone to read.
The first post was about all the experimenting and rewriting I had to do when I first sat down to write The Mademoiselle Alliance, including changing tense and point of view a couple of times to get the voice of the book right, which was painful but necessary.
This is What Keeps Us Writing
Every time you sit down to write a book, there are so many choices you have to make: first person or third person point of view; past tense or present tense; which character would be the best narrator; where to even start the narrative—at the beginning of the actual story, at some point in the middle, or within one of the most dramatic scenes? And those…
And the second post was a defence of readers, who I felt were being wrongly maligned in several posts that had appeared on the internet of late. Thank you everyone for your comments and engagement on that post!
But now, let’s go to Paris!
The first thing that happened when we arrived in Paris to kick off my research was that my daughters both got COVID. (My family usually comes with me on my research trips because we always have fun exploring strange and unusual places).
I hadn’t ever had COVID at that point, whereas my husband had, and I was also there to do work, so that meant my husband got the job of looking after the two girls while my son and I set off across Paris together. (As you can see from the picture below, the two girls didn’t feel too bad, thankfully!)
Just a note before I get further into my French trip—and show you the photographs!—this email will be cut off in some email apps like Gmail because it’s quite long. If you want to read the whole post and see all the pics from my visit to France, just click on the headline at the top of the email and you’ll be taken to the website where you can read the entire post properly.
My Research Trip to France
Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris
Our first stop was at what is probably the most famous cemetery in the world, with people making pilgrimages to the graves of Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, and many others. Marie-Madeleine is also buried here and it was one of the most affecting experiences of my life to stand before her grave. Sadly, the location of her grave isn’t included in the tourist bureau’s official map, so it does take a bit of detective work to find it in Division 90 of the cemetery.
Even more sadly, the grave has been so eroded by time and weather that you can no longer read Marie-Madeleine Fourcade’s name. Standing there, her name totally effaced, made me recall what happened when Charles de Gaulle created the Compagnons de la Libération to honour the Resistance fighters he believed had fought the hardest for France’s freedom. He bestowed that honour on 1,038 people. Of them, 1,032 were men, including three of Marie-Madeleine’s lieutenants. Marie-Madeleine was not among them. Effaced once again.
Yet, without her, the war might have dragged on for years more—might have ended very differently, in fact. The sense of injustice I felt when standing by her grave propelled the writing of the book.
Also at the cemetery are several WWII memorials; the monument to those, like Amniarix (or Jeannie Rousseau, one of Marie-Madeleine’s agents), who were deported to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, is particularly moving.
Vergt
From there we drove to a small town called Vergt where Léon Faye, Marie-Madeleine’s second-in-command and a very important person in her life, grew up. In the centre, at Place Charles Mangold, is a war memorial with a plaque dedicated to Léon. This was another very moving experience, especially when you understand just how much he did to secure freedom for all of us, and that now his life has been reduced to a plaque, one that most people won’t stop to look at because they don’t understand what it means. Plenty of tears were shed on this journey through France!
The Dordogne region
Next stop was the Dordogne region where Marie-Madeleine spent Christmas 1942 with her network. It’s a secretive, shadowy place perfect for hiding out in. The town of Sarlat-la-Canéda is close to where the Chateau Malfonds, one of her network’s headquarters, was located and it’s a lovely French town to spend a few hours in. I think that’s one of the things that hit me most starkly—the contrast between the beauty of the country and the terrible things that happened there.
Port du Vallon des Auffes, Marseille
One of Marie-Madeleine’s first headquarters was located in this part of Marseille. It’s a petite but beautiful harbor, filled with colorful boats and surrounded by high cliffs. The blue and green shutters adorning the houses are like bright squares of color offsetting the gold and terra cotta tones of the buildings. It would have been a lovely place to work, too lovely considering the kind of work that Marie-Madeleine and her agents were doing—trying to stay alive. Again, the contrasts really struck me here.
The Corniche, Marseille (now known as Corniche President John Fitzgerald Kennedy)
From the south side of Port du Vallon des Auffes, I climbed up to the Corniche, a 4.5 kilometer long seaside promenade with some of the most spectacular views in France. The ocean around Marseille is an incomparable shade of blue. I was truly stunned by the gorgeousness of it all when I stood here and it really made me think about how Marie-Madeleine and her agents must have felt, huddled in a house transmitting messages about the Nazis’ plans to MI6, knowing that if the Nazis caught them, they’d be dead.
These are the kinds of feelings and experiences that you can’t channel into a book if you haven’t walked in the footsteps of your characters, and it’s why I always travel to the places where my books are set—so I can understand what it might have felt like in a way I just couldn’t do if I was only to look at a tourist photo on the internet. Marie-Madeleine lived in a house along the Corniche for a few months during 1942 and one of her network’s headquarters was also located here
Aix-en-Provence
This is both one of the most beautiful towns in France and also where Marie-Madeleine was imprisoned in a military barracks after being caught by the Gestapo. The images below show what most people will see when they visit Aix-en-Provence.
But I also visited 13 Boulevard des Poilus, which is now the Lycée Militaire (or military high school). This is where Marie-Madeleine was imprisoned, but it looks like an ordinary, unthreatening building now. This was another surreal experience—maybe it was my overactive imagination, but I felt a real presence here of evil. I couldn’t wait to walk away.
Every time I saw something beautiful on this trip, it reminded me of all the beauty of a person like Marie-Madeleine, who was so heroic, who gave up seeing her children for months on end because it was the right thing to do—to fight for her country’s freedom so that her children and everyone else’s children wouldn’t have to grow up in a country ruled by a monster. It reminded me of the courage of the 3,000 agents of the Alliance Resistance network who mostly were ordinary people like you and me, but who did extraordinary things.
That’s definitely something worth remembering in light of what’s happening in the world right now.
Short and Sweet
Some other things you might be interested in:
My book tour is in full swing. Many events are sold out, however there are also tickets available for other events. You can find the full list of events and booking links here.
My US publisher is running an amazing giveaway on Instagram right now. You can win a copy of THE MADEMOISELLE ALLIANCE, as well as some makeup, a travel journal, gorgeous candles and a few other delicious things. Details here.
There’s another giveaway happening right now on Goodreads for my North American readers with 20 copies up for grabs. You can enter here.
The Australian newspaper ran an article on the weekend that I wrote about Marie-Madeleine Fourcade; grab a copy of the paper if you’d like to know a little more about her extraordinary life
If you’d like to try one of my earlier books, Australian readers will find that 7—yes that’s right, 7(!) —of them are on sale right now for just $4.99 in ebook, including The Paris Seamstress, The Paris Secret and The Three Lives of Alix St Pierre. Get a copy wherever you buy your ebooks, or from the Apple Books store here. Limited time only.
For North American readers, The Paris Seamstress is a Kindle Monthly Deal until the end of March for just $1.99 via Amazon.
That’s all for this week! I hope I get to see you on my book tour. Thanks for celebrating publication day with me. And, most of all, I hope that you enjoy THE MADEMOISELLE ALLIANCE.
Having read the book (yep, I finally finished those last 50 or so pages) and having interviewed you for it, this was FASCINATING to read. Save travels! x
I love that part of the world!! I have to get you on Dear Fiction!! I'm going to message you!!! xoxo Congrats.