Paris in Love

Starred review from January 23, 2012
Two American academics with growing kids shucked life in the New Jersey suburbs for a year in Paris and savored the splendors of style and gourmandise, as James, the nom de plume of romance author Mary Bly, recounts in this effervescent diary. Bly, a professor at Fordham University, wangled the family to Paris on her sabbatical after the death of her mother from cancer and her own bout with breast cancer. Her Italian-American husband, Alessandro, was the only one who could speak French, while the two children, Anna, 11, and Luca, 15, were immersed in an American school in Paris where they were shocked by the rigor and discipline compared to their American Quaker school. Living on the rue du Conservatoire, in the diverse 9th arrondissement, and aiming to write academic tomes and romance novels, the author mainly shopped, according to her percolating dispatches rendered in discrete segments like diary entries: for chocolate, shoes, emergency hair highlights, and lingerie. Dazzled by the array of menu choices and fine luxury products, she was frequently paralyzed by the Frenchwoman’s ability to look chic without being studied or silly. While the children struggled then triumphed in school and with new friends, the dog grew fatter, and Alessandro advised his French conversation partner in affairs of the heart, James/Bly discovered a “materialist’s playground” in Paris, finding just that precious objet or museum or nibble, and relaying in her sensible, reflective prose the lessons to take home and dream over. Agent: Kim Witherspoon.

November 1, 2011

By day, James is actually Mary Bly, daughter of poet Robert Bly and associate professor and head of the creative writing department at Fordham University. By night, she's the New York Times best-selling author of 24 exquisitely written historical romances. This memoir discusses the year James spent with her family in Paris after she survived both cancer and the death of her mother. James is a smart writer in any genre, Paris is the dream city for escape, and this should be excellent.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 2012

Much-praised romance author James (literature, Fordham Univ.; The Duke Is Mine) survived a bout with breast cancer, the same disease that killed her mother. Though chemotherapy and radiation were not prescribed, James still felt she needed a life change. She and her husband, Alessandro, their precocious ten-year-old daughter, Anna, and sometimes surly 15-year-old son, Luca, sold their New Jersey home and a good number of their possessions and moved to Paris for a year. She here reveals the City of Light in its intrinsic Paris-ness--its eateries, museums, shops, and smells--through a collection of meticulous Facebook updates, revised for the book, bracketed by longer essays, some harking back to her Minnesota childhood. With all the wit and urbanity that have made her romance novels best sellers, James draws readers into her year abroad and will make them wish she was a Facebook friend, to have followed these captivating insights on a daily basis. VERDICT Not just for Francophiles or even James's legion of fans, this delectable confection, which includes recipes, is more than a visit to a glorious city: it is also a tour of a family, a marriage, and a love that has no borders. Tres magnifique!--Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.