Sense of Touch: Love and Duty at Anne of Brittany’s Court

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Amazon, Anne of Brittany, Brittany, Charles VIII, Claude of France, Duchess of Brittany, Europe, European history, France, French Queens, Kindle Scout, Louis XII, Medieval rulers, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Salic Law, Sense of Touch, women of history, women's issues, women's self-identity

Anne of Brittany by Jean Bourdichon, courtesy gallica.BnF.fr

Sense of Touch is coming soon. My seventh and latest novel is based on the life of Anne of Brittany, twice Queen of France. Her dates? 1477-1514.

Sense of Touch has been chosen by Kindle Scout for a 30-day pilot program to see if readers get interested in this story. If the book receives enough nominations by Oct. 19, 2015, it will be chosen for publication by Kindle Press. That’s a very big deal. Why? Worldwide distribution.

Here’s the link to nominate Sense of Touch for publication. It’s free, and if Sense of Touch gets picked up for publication, you will receive a complimentary advance copy. I will include your name on my acknowledgments page if you let me know you voted. Thank you.

Why am I excited about Anne of Brittany? This remarkable woman, Duchess of Brittany in her own right, and twice Queen of France due to marrying well, lived exactly at the convergence of the Middle Ages with the Renaissance. What does that mean?

Quick answer: Goodbye, Middle Ages. Hello, Renaissance.

To put it in a nutshell, it means goodbye to collective identity and hello to self-identity. My writing platform is all about self-identity, as in how do women achieve their own? Then, how do they hone it through the years as professional and family obligations conspire to obliterate their special je ne sais quoi?

Anne of Brittany did a great job of maintaining her own sense of self. Her motto? A ma vie, to my life. It takes a confident woman to have a motto like that.

Here’s the gist of Sense of Touch.

Fiction

Tapestry design based on Le Toucher from The Lady and the Unicorn series. Courtesy METRAX-CRAYE, Belgium

NICOLE SAINT SYLVAIN serves at the court of Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, in 1497, at age fifteen. Working with horse trainer Philippe de Bois to heal the Queen’s stallion, she shows an aptitude for diagnosing horses’ ailments through her sense of touch. Soon she has fallen in love, but not with the man her father has chosen for her. Duty pulls Nicole and Philippe in different directions and Nicole becomes a wife, mother, then widow while immersing herself in the healing arts. When Anne of Brittany begs her to save her infant daughter, Nicole works alongside a physician from the South whose reputation for healing began with his work with horses. Will Nicole succeed in saving the Queen’s daughter? And if she does, will the Queen reward her with the greatest desire of her heart—marriage to the only man she has ever loved?

Fact

ANNE OF BRITTANY inherited the Duchy of Brittany at age eleven upon her father’s death in 1488. Three years later she married Charles VIII and became Queen consort of France. Instrumental in introducing new techniques of architecture and craftsmanship from Milan to France, Anne of Brittany ushered in the Italian Renaissance to France. By age twenty-one she had buried her husband and all four of her children. Within nine months she became wife of the new king, Louis XII. Pregnant fourteen times, seven times by either king, she raised two children to adulthood. Both were daughters.

She is known as the first female ruler of France to bring together young women of noble birth at court, where she educated and trained them, then arranged appropriate marriage matches. A ruler of influence, refinement, and resources, she rose above personal loss with dignity and grace while espousing the cause of women’s advancement. Her story is for women everywhere.

I would be delighted if you would click here to nominate Sense of Touch for publication. You’ll find an excerpt from Sense of Touch too. Enjoy and thank you.

Stay playful,

Rozsa Gaston

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Passion duets with restraint in Budapest’s thermal bath spas in Budapest Romance..

http://blogcritics.org/interview-rozsa-gaston-author-of-budapest-romance/

The memory of a thousand caresses flooded over her.—Budapest Romance, Rozsa Gaston

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Budapest, Cafe Gerbeaud, eBooks, fiction online, fitness, Gellert Hotel, Hungary, Kindle, pleasure, promotion, publishing, pursuit of pleasure, relationships, romance, self-discovery, self-esteem, seo, spa, spa baths, spa culture, Szechenyi Baths, travel

Budapest Romance comes out November 17, 2014, darling readers. My latest book is a contemporary romance. Set in Budapest, it’s the story of an American woman meeting a Dutchman at a thermal bath spa hotel. Ready to help me decide on the cover?

Let’s go to Budapest and soak in this mineralized pool at the Gellert Hotel Spa while we consider cover choices.

Hot pink or light pink? Big title font or smaller title font? Interested to review and advance copy and send me your review to be posted on launch day in a place of honor? Here’s the story:

When Kati Dunai travels to Budapest to settle her father’s estate, the last thing on her mind is the pursuit of pleasure. She’s a busy international conference planner, her life rooted in Manhattan.

But from the moment she sets foot in the city of her father’s youth, it’s pleasure that pursues her. At the thermal bath spa hotel where she’s staying, she meets a Dutchman who reminds her of Béla Dunai, a Hungarian refugee who fled his homeland shortly after its 1956 revolution.

Jan Klassen is in Budapest to mend from a motorcycle accident. His scars have healed on the outside, but inside, he cannot forgive himself for the consequences his son now lives with forever.

Jan has never met a woman like Kati before. Her blend of New England restraint with gypsy spirit captivates him. While Jan introduces Kati to Budapest’s leisurely pace of life, Kati introduces Jan to her own leisurely pace of sensual exploration as their attraction to each other grows over six magical days.

When Kati returns to New York, their relationship continues. But it’s not just an ocean that separates them. Kati’s corporate job with lots of travel is the antithesis of the slow-paced pleasures she enjoyed in her father’s favorite city, one of Europe’s crown jewels.

Which will Kati put first—her new career or her new love; a man who reminds her of the father she never fully understood? And is it the Hungarian pleasure-loving side of herself that she really needs to understand before she can offer her heart to the man who has awakened her to who she truly is?

Rainy day in Paris’s shades of gray

Now darlings, if you really want to enjoy a book that’s already out there, take a trip to Paris without the airfare with Paris Adieu.

And if you want to be part of the final design and advance review team for Budapest Romance, send me your thoughts on cover design choice or request for advance review copy to rgaston@optonline.net.

One last thing, darling reader—Don’t forget to do something fun today. Just for yourself.

Stay playful.

Rozsa Gaston

 

 

 

 

“WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the fleur.”—Chaucer, Prologue to Canterbury Tales

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April, Black is Not a Color, Canterbury Tales, chaucer, Greenwich, Greenwich Moms, Party with Moms, PIFS, Putnam Indian Field School, U.N., UN, United Nations

Party with Moms interviews Rozsa Gaston today as their Mom of the Week. Read here and if you enjoy, sign up for the Party with Moms weekly newsletter. http://partywithmoms.com/party-with-moms-interviews-rozsa-gaston-prolific-author/

Once, just a few Aprils ago, I was a freshman in college and forced to memorize the first twelve lines of the prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

Imagine my delight when I realized that Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales were terribly tickly, not to mention positively ribald in parts! Not some old, moldy, medieval stanzas, but colorful, naughty and well worth the effort to make out the Olde English words.

Geoffrey Chaucer c. 1343-1400

Here’s first twelve lines of the most sensational poem written about April I’ve ever come across. Enjoy!

WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich  licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the fleur;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmers for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,

The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.

Excerpt from Black is Not a Color

“Did you sleep?” Narcisa whispered to me as the owner of the male voice headed toward the nearest silver-tray-carrying waiter to capture two glasses of white wine for us.
“Did I what?”
“Did you sleep?” she asked again.
“Yes. I slept well, thank you” I answered confusedly. Did I look tired to her?
“You don’t have to tell me who it was. But tell me—who was it?”
“Uh—it was me. I mean I slept well. Didn’t you?”
“Ohhh no. I didn’t sleep. I had friends who helped me,” Narcisa whispered back, one eyebrow lifted significantly.
“Ohhh, I see. Uh—no I didn’t sleep. I—uh- took the tests last spring and they called me the beginning of August.” Startled by the conversational curveball, I stepped back from Narcisa, still intrigued but alerted that I had no idea who I was dealing with. The U.N. was on international territory. American rules no longer applied.
“The tests. Everyone takes the tests. So what? How did you get the job?” she pressed.
“Like I said, I took the tests. That was it. I waited, I gave up hope, then they called.” I shrugged in what I hoped was the classic Gallic way, perfected by my recent stay in Paris.
Narcisa studied me as I spoke. It was like taking a lie-detector test. Suddenly I felt as if I’d slept even when I hadn’t.
“So you just took the tests and they called you. That was it?”
“Yes,” I said, crisply. I tried to look like I wasn’t lying, even when I wasn’t. It was confusing talking to Narcisa.

Black is Not a Color © 2014 by Rozsa Gaston

“At night we are all strangers, even to ourselves.” -Alexander McCall Smith

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Alexander McCall Smith, Botswana, Cityscape, exercise, fitness, Fordham University, George Bodarky, joggers, love, relationships, running, WFUV

Author Rozsa Gaston interviewed on WFUV 90.7 FM Fordham University Cityscape show, 7-6-13 (12:11)
What are you running from? Are you running from love?

Join George Bodarky on Cityscape Saturday, July 6, 7:30-8 am for a discussion of Running from Love: A Story for Runners and Lovers on WFUV’s Cityscape radio show at 90.7 FM and at wfuv.org. Link to 12 minute audio interview here.

George Bodarky, host of Cityscape, interviewed author Rozsa Gaston about running with the Van Cortlandt Track Club, running in Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx, and topics touched upon in her book Running from Love such as overcoming downhill running and relationship fears. The discussion should be of interest to runners in general and specifically to runners on track clubs who have thought about or experienced dating a fellow member of their club. Tune in to 90.7 FM, WFUV Fordham University’s alternative music station and learn how to stop running from love. I’ll be listening myself. Hope I learn something and I hope you do too.

Warmly, Rozsa

P.S. Who’s Alexander McCall Smith? A simply amazing writer and the author of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, a fictitious tale of a female detective set in Botswana. I love this book!

Surf’s up – get playful.

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caregiving, fitness and exercise, follow your bliss, French culture, fun, life tips, March, Moon PR, Nancy Moon, Paris Adieu, self-care, spring's arrival, surfing, Vitamin D, women's health women's well-being, women's issues

Nancy Moon rides the waves

Surf’s up – get playful.

March’s debut heralds spring’s arrival. Throw off those February doldrums and get playful. You.

What’s that? You spend all your time helping others so you can’t find time to play? Care giving at both ends of the generational spectrum? Tired of everything, starting with yourself?

Stop boring me to tears. Get up from your desk, get outside, and get playful. That’s an order.

Here’s a babe who knows how to do just that. Does this chick look like she’s sitting around compiling a grocery list for dinner? Don’t think so. Nancy Moon, who I think of as Moon Girl, is in the moment, following her bliss. What about you?

Facing the wave

By the way, Nancy Moon is not twenty-five years old or under. She just looks like she is because she feels like she is. Not all the time, but at the moment these images capture.

Can’t afford to drop everything and take a trip to a surfing destination, never mind that you don’t know how to surf? That’s not an excuse.

Moon Girl glows in golden sun

Get out there and get some sun on your face. Today. That’s right, go out and greet Mr. Golden Sun and feel the vitamin D pour into your soul, filling every cell of your body with vitality. It’s easy, really.

The sun glows golden in the late afternoon right before it begins to descend. It’s a bit like the way the French refer to a woman of a certain age as “une femme mûre” or “a ripe woman.” The French highly admire attractive women in their golden late afternoon chapter. Many Americans do too. Connoissieurs of finely seasoned beauty can be found in many unexpected places. Find out more in Chapter Ten of Paris Adieu.

Did you see that man on the corner giving you the eye as you sauntered past? What? You didn’t notice? Next time you take a walk, saunter. Find your inner French femme. When you start to do that, the connoissieurs of this world will take note. Promise. You may even want to meet some of them. You won’t, if you’re in a rush.

Now back to your March marching orders. Go outside this afternoon and let the sun’s golden rays sink into your psyche. Later in the afternoon, coincident with that mid-afternoon energy slump, the sun’s rays are less bad for your skin than  between the hours of 10 am and 3 pm. Have you got a packed day today? Don’t have a single second to yourself?

Fuggedaboutit. Make it happen, darling. Take ten minutes and instead of hitting the vending machine, go downstairs, out the door, and say hello to the world that is your stage. Connect with nature. Open your ears to hear what that bird is singing about. He’s heralding spring’s arrival. A few weeks early, granted, but he’s out there noticing all the signs, just as you should be.

Moon Girl says thumbs up to life

Thumbs up to life, friends. If yours isn’t as glamorous as Moon Girl’s, remember — these shots capture just one golden afternoon. The rest of the time she’s running around like the rest of us, busy, attending to the needs of others, spilling her vitality right and left. But inside, she has bottomless energy to give. Because she knows she’s Moon Girl. Be a Moon Girl too. Follow your bliss. You owe it to yourself. Start today.

Playfully yours,

Rozsa

Rich People

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be here now, chic, fashion, kindle book, Paris, Paris Adieu, rich people

Countess Jacqueline de Ribes does rich nicely

Rich People – Musings on Those Unlike Us

Rich people are much busier than you and me. For example, a rich person wouldn’t have time to read this blog, never mind write it. They’re too busy doing other things such as talking on their cellphones, texting and ignoring whoever is nearby.

Rich people are good at multi-tasking. What they’re not good at is paying attention to what’s happening in their immediate environment. That would require an attitude that shouts, “I don’t have anything better to do than hang out with you right here, right now!” That’s not a rich person’s attitude.

Would you like to be rich? Me too. While we’re working toward this goal, we need to fake it till we make it. What’s that all about? Read Paris Adieu. Start on p. 63 if you’re really in a hurry to know or continue reading here.

Faking it till you make it is about visualizing yourself somewhere, then filling in the gaps along the way to getting there. There’s more to it than that, but for a complete discussion of the technique, roam around Paris Adieu, my book on Ava’s adventures in Paris, to discover how Ava graduates from plump, frizzy-haired cluelessness to becoming a woman with a certain air that scents the atmosphere around her and turns heads for the rest of her life. Her passport to her destination is to fake it till she makes it. She’s still faking it, frankly, but never mind. As far as you and I are concerned, she has arrived.

Rich people frequently act as if they have arrived and you haven’t. The hitch is, the place where they’ve arrived is usually somewhere other than where they are at the moment.

One of the problems with being rich is that you’re no longer living in the here and now, once you’re there. You’re somehow somewhere else at every single moment of your present one. Think of how professional models act when someone takes their photo in public. They look away from the camera, as if there’s a better party they’re about to leave yours to go to.

That’s how rich people are too. So my advice to you, dear reader, is to work on becoming rich, but don’t worry too much if you’re not there yet. Better to stay in the here and now than in the somewhere better, some other time. At least you’ll be fully present. That’s a present to everyone around you. And what could make you feel more rich than being able to offer gifts to people everywhere you go?

This holiday season be your own gift to yourself and be here now. If you’re not quite there yet, then fake it till you make it. If Ava can do it, you can too. Happy holidays!

Fabulous book alert – I Want to Be Her! by Andrea Linett with illustrations by Anne Johnston Albert. An illustrated treatise on how to look rich.

Self Esteem Journey with Paris Adieu by Rozsa Gaston

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body awareness, e-book giveaway, food addictions, free book, hot tub interview, kindle book, nutrition, Paris, personal growth, romance, self-discovery, travel, women's issues

Author Rozsa Gaston discusses her coming of age novel Paris Adieu in comfortable surroundings. Join her in a three-minute discussion of how Ava learns to be comfortable in her own skin.

FREE giveaway of Paris Adieu Kindle Edition begins tomorrow, Thurs. Nov. 29 and ends Fri. Nov. 30 at midnight. Download Paris Adieu for free and tell your friends to download too. You don’t have to have a Kindle to download Kindle Edition. Download the Kindle App on your iPad or home computer and start reading about Ava’s journey to self-discovery. Paris Adieu at  http://amzn.to/MLX194.

How Ava Learned to Eat Well in France

When Ava arrived in Paris at age 19, she couldn’t walk past a pastry shop without going in. Fifteen pounds later, she decided she needed to take control of her food choices. It was a gradual process. Parisian women proved attractive role models to Ava, with their love of pleasure and careful attention to eating small quantities of delicious, high-quality food. They knew something Ava didn’t. It took her ten years to find out. You can find out faster by picking up Paris Adieu and skipping directly to Chapter Seven, p. 114.

Although she admired Parisian women from afar, she couldn’t study them at close quarters, because she didn’t know any. It was Ava’s British girlfriend, Charlotte, whose eating habits tripped the switch that put Ava on the right course to gaining mastery over how she ate and how much. The following scene is excerpted from Paris Adieu:

We took our coffee at the counter, where Pascal introduced me to a new custom. I’d often wondered why eggs were displayed on a vertical stand on Parisian café counter tops, especially in the mornings. Now, I watched as he plucked three eggs from the stand, peeled, and salted one then handed it to me. The hard-boiled egg was fresh and delicious.

My English girlfriend, Charlotte, came to mind. I’d met her in Tokyo, where I taught English the summer between sophomore and junior years. She was ten years older, wildly sophisticated, with a penchant for black American Japanese major league baseball players; a male genre which enjoyed superstar status in Japan. Pretty, tall, and willowy, her complexion was as delicate as an English rain shower.

Her eating habits had been as carefully controlled as her love life had not. She was discipline personified. I’d soaked up everything she did, worshiping at the altar of her self-control. Every morning, she’d eat either one hard-boiled or soft-boiled egg with a piece of unbuttered whole wheat toast. She’d wash this down with a few cups of tea. I never saw her vary from this routine once. After we’d parted ways in Tokyo, she came to Yale one spring to visit me. At breakfast in the chaos of my residential college dining hall, surrounded by undergraduates wolfing down doughnuts, bowls of granola, plates of pancakes, eggs and bacon, she maintained her strict regimen by carefully peeling her hard-boiled egg and toasting her lone piece of bread. My girlfriends and I were in awe.

A good number of the girls in my class were anywhere from five to fifteen pounds overweight, except for the ones who were anorexic, bulimic, or naturally slim. My female colleagues and I sucked in our breaths as Charlotte rose from the table after breakfasting, her stomach flat, hip bones jutting out fashionably under her thin, flowered dress, with long slim legs ending in ankles you could wrap your fingers around. Everything about her showed us up. After dark, she was capable of drinking like a fish, another British character trait my Yale colleagues and I found impressive.

As I stood at the counter, enjoying my salted, hard-boiled egg, I connected up the dots. Pascal was showing me how to do something Charlotte had known how to do her entire adult life: carefully control her blood sugar in the morning so she didn’t become enslaved to it for the rest of the day.

Finishing the egg, I washed it down with strong coffee with foaming milk in it. Suddenly the display case of flaky croissants farther down the counter had no power over me. If the counterman had slid it down to my end, taken off the top, and wafted the tray under my nose, I wouldn’t have flinched. My one hard-boiled egg with coffee was enough. For the first time in my life, I felt like a Frenchwoman.

Excerpted from Paris Adieu by Rozsa Gaston © 2012, all rights reserved.