When I was studying the art of kimono and Japanese dance, I remember asking my sensei, teacher, how long a geisha could work at her profession of song and dance.
‘For as long as she wishes,’ she said. ‘I know a geisha in her nineties.’
‘There’s no work discrimination because of her age?’
‘None.’
‘Why?’
‘Because a geisha is ageless.’
Yes… ageless. I thought of that often when I was writing THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS. My heroine is a famed parfumier who is eighty when we open in New York City in 2003. It’s a world when cellphones weren’t the norm, texting was in its infancy, the Concorde made flights from New York to Paris… and memories of the Holocaust were still vivid in the minds of many survivors.
Like Madame de Cadieux.
A woman who survived both Auschwitz and Dachau, but never spoke about it until she meets a young reporter named Emma Keane who touches a nerve in her that now is the time to speak about those times. Her memories are as vivid to this eighty-year-old as if she were the seventeen-year-old girl who ran away to Paris to become a parfumier after losing her mother to the Nazi war machine.
I wrote THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS to pay tribute to the strong women who survived the Holocaust and willingly shared their stories with us. The horror of Nazi brutality, the loss of family, their dignity… but also about their strength just to ‘survive another day’. And the strong bonds with their sisters-in-arms they formed with fellow prisoners. How they learned to trust each other and stood up against the enemy to save each other.
Like the geisha, these women are ageless.
We must never forget.
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Here is a short excerpt from THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS:
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Love Forties Fiction?
A girl from a controversial upbringing becomes a famous perfumer during the war when she comes to Paris in 1940 to escape the Gestapo. Then how she uses perfume to do her part to win the war…
THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS is up for pre-order on Amazon!
Release date: November 30, 2021
US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09B1QDRVW/
UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09B1QDRVW/
CA https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B09B1QDRVW/
Australia https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B09B1QDRVW/
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Over 500 ratings on Amazon UK!
The Resistance Girl
Juliana discovers her grandmamma was a famous French film star in Occupied Paris & her shocking secret…
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When I was studying the art of kimono and Japanese dance, I remember asking my sensei, teacher, how long a geisha could work at her profession of song and dance. ‘For as long as she wishes,’ she said. ‘I know a geisha in her nineties.’ ‘There’s no work discrimination because of her age?’ ‘None.’ ‘Why?’ […]
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When I was studying the art of kimono and Japanese dance, I remember asking my sensei, teacher, how long a geisha could work at her profession of song and dance. ‘For as long as she wishes,’ she said. ‘I know a geisha in her nineties.’ ‘There’s no work discrimination because of her age?’ ‘None.’ ‘Why?’ […]
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I discovered early on that I inherited the gift of the gab from my large Irish family when I penned a story about a princess who ran away to Paris with her pet turtle Lulu. I was twelve.
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I discovered early on that I inherited the gift of the gab from my large Irish family when I penned a story about a princess who ran away to Paris with her pet turtle Lulu. I was twelve.
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When I was studying the art of kimono and Japanese dance, I remember asking my sensei, teacher, how long a geisha could work at her profession of song and dance. ‘For as long as she wishes,’ she said. ‘I know a geisha in her nineties.’ ‘There’s no work discrimination because of her age?’ ‘None.’ ‘Why?’ […]
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