Mademoiselle Eiffel by Aimie Runyan

International bestselling author Aimie Runyan is our guest! Join us to discuss her new novel, Mademoiselle Eiffel. Claire Eiffel, the brilliant daughter of architect Gustave Eiffel, becomes her father’s confidante and indispensable assistant, supporting his ambitions until she’s pushed aside by a young protégé, Adolphe Salles, who later becomes her husband. As the Eiffel Tower rises, Claire’s devotion is tested by scandal and her father’s imprisonment, forcing her to fight for both her family’s freedom and their legacy.

Transcript

Jane: 0:02

Welcome to Historical Happy Hour, the podcast that explores new and exciting historical fiction. I'm your host, Jane Healey, and in today's episode, we welcome my friend, bestselling author Amy K. Runyon to discuss her latest novel, Mademoiselle Eiffel, which came out in September. Thank you, Amy. Thanks for coming back on. Thank you for having me, Jane. It's a pleasure. So great. So I'm gonna give quick bio about Amy and jump right in. Amy writes fiction, both historical and contemporary that celebrates the spirit of strong women. In addition to her writing, she's active as a speaker and educator in the writing community and beyond. She's an adjunct professor for the Drexel University MFA program. A Rocky Mountain Writer of the Year finalist, a Historical Novel Society Editor's Choice Selection, and has been a finalist for the Colorado Book Award five times and counting. She lives in Colorado with her amazing husband, two kids, two cats, and a dragon. Again, welcome and thanks for coming on tonight and taking time. Thank you so much. Mademoiselle Eiffel, if you could hold it up. I read it on Kindle. I want everyone to see the beautiful cover. You and I share a love of France and I did not know much about the Eiffel family, frankly. And so talk about the fascinating premise of this book and why you decided to write it.

Aimie: 1:22

I wanted to follow up. So I have, I'm, we're not supposed to play favorites, but I fell in love with writing a bakery in Paris. And the main the, one of the two timelines and my, the timeline that I was really in love with was the 1870s and 1871 when Paris was in a huge state of upheaval because of the Franco Prussian war and the Paris Commune and the aftermath, right?

Jane: 1:47

And

Aimie: 1:48

it was amazing to me that less than 20 years later, Paris is at its cultural zenith with the World's Fair, the building of the Eiffel Tower. It's a rebound story for the ages, and I wanted to write something set in the Belle Époque as a follow on to A Bakery in Paris. And I was, researching, interesting women from the Belle Époque, and nobody had written a story about Claire Eiffel. And She was, the oldest daughter of the famous architect, Gustav, built a tower you've all heard of, and she, her mother died when Claire was only 14. And she took over, of course, the expected part. She took over the raising of her four younger siblings and managing the household, which, involves staff. They were well, they were grand bourgeoisie And but then she became her father's business advisor and confidant Which was super interesting And so she was clearly intelligent and capable And you know the apple of her father's eye and I just thought it was, perfect grist for a story And the more I dug and I got access to the ipa family archives at the musée d'orsay I had to write her story. I had to.

Jane: 3:03

Yeah, that, that's actually a great segue into my next question because I knew nothing about Claire and and she was a fascinating character in history. Such a great discovery for you. And so talk about your research it, about what you found at the Musée d'Orsay and the research you did in France for this book, because that sounded, Amazing to me.

Aimie: 3:22

Yeah, so the good news was okay So the world I didn't do wasn't able to do any research On site for a bakery in paris or the memory of lavender and sage really a little bit for lavender and sage Actually because it wasn't finished now that my memory is coming back to me but I was working on pitching Mademoiselle Eiffel and I was going to France with my husband. It was like a delayed honeymoon. And I said, I need a day in Paris. I need a day at the Musée d'Orsay. And I managed to get access to the archives through the permission of the family, et cetera, which was amazing. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. And so I got to spend a day frantically with my, with my cell phone snapping pictures of All the, the letters and everything, and it was chaotic. It was absolutely chaotic, trying to get as much as I could in one six hour session, which was actually really generous. But and so then I drafted the book, but I felt like there were still things I needed to do. And so I got to go back to France for a week on my own. Six days, but on my own. And I spent three of those days in the Musée d'Orsay. Getting more and more information to fill in the gaps, and then on the off days, visiting the places that were significant to her. The church where she was married, getting to see the outside of the homes where she lived the ones that were still in existence, and it was just amazing to try and walk in her footsteps, and just for those of you who are writers in the group, Trying to bundle that with getting promo fixtures for A Bakery in Paris and getting others, and also for Lavender and Sage a little bit, and trying to, use the trip for as for as much bandwidth as possible, or to get as much bang for the buck as possible.

Jane: 5:05

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that sounds delightful, by the way. I saw, I remember some of your pictures from that trip, too, and I'm like, oh, that looks so great. It was

Aimie: 5:12

great. Yeah, and not having to, I love traveling with my husband. He's a great travel companion. But being on my own was a special experience. Especially trying to be in her footsteps and getting to be in my own head space was exactly what I needed for this book.

Jane: 5:27

Yeah, absolutely. And a huge

Aimie: 5:29

public thank you to my husband for watching the kids.

Jane: 5:32

husband. Was there anything in your research of the family and the era that surprised you? Was there anything that kind of sent you in a different direction with the book or anything like that?

Aimie: 5:45

Just the fact that, there's so much that wasn't there, because Claire, there was a lot of correspondence before, in the around the period her mother died, 1877. And I learned a lot about how she felt about her grandmother, for example, that her grandmother's a really overbearing woman in the opening chapters. That was not an invention of mine based on both some of the concerns I read in the letters when she was away in Portugal and she's worried about the influence their grandmother is going to have on her next youngest sister, only a year younger than she is. Already stepping into the role of Mother Hen a few months after her mother died. And so that was surprising. She was she was a heck of a woman. And so I really didn't invent that too much. Of course, I interpolated some of my grandmother's very strong personality on top of it as well. But the fact that Claire and her husband lived with Gustav. For the rest of Gustav's life and her husband's life because they, Gustav and Claire's husband Adolf died within a few months of each other in the 1920s and so they spent the, they basically lived together, the three of them, for the rest of their lives and Claire lived another 10 years and she was left the use of the house for the rest of her life but they paid rent. I found that super interesting. They paid rent for the privilege of living with Gustav. And I think it was probably cheaper than having their own house of anything like that level of quality, it also gave them agency over a specific set of rooms, and so it was a way to keep things above board and to cut off any arguments. But it's, to me, it's amazing that they managed to live together so well. It's like the Crawleys from Downton Abbey. Living together generationally. Yeah.

Jane: 7:29

Yeah, exactly that. I want to talk about the era again because she's late 1800s to 1900s in France was, it was a time of innovation and prosperity. And you always do a beautiful job with things like food and fashion. It must have been really fun to write about and and talk about a little bit about like that research that aspect of it.

Aimie: 7:50

Yeah there's a great scene. One of my favorite scenes that I wrote was about Claire getting her first corset And I did some research into the corseting of the era because I you know, i've worn corsets You know costuming and things like that. I'm a nerd and and they're not as uncomfortable I wanted to get away from the trope of them being Constricting and then being a metaphor for a female prison. I wanted to break from that trope Because a well fitted corset is actually not that bad. But I found research about the Maison Léotie, which is a real corset house. And they were innovating the design in order to make them more wearable and, using springs and making them. So it was a little bit more natural, but still offered support and that beautiful silhouette for, the fashion of the time. And I thought that was fun. Fascinating. I love that. And so I incorporated that and, this kind of modern take on corsetry as opposed to, what Bunmomo Yifel, the grandmother thought was appropriate. And that was, a great deal of fun to, to play with that.

Jane: 8:54

Yeah. Oh, no, I love that. Like thinking about it as a body of armor instead of as something that constricted a woman. I thought that was really interesting too.

Aimie: 9:03

Yeah. And if you've ever worn one, the steel, it makes you feel strong. It makes you feel invincible. And so I liked owning the female strength instead of dismissing it as being restrictive and that sort of thing.

Jane: 9:16

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So you talked a little bit about how Claire was so young and she's forced into this very mature role, both like in her family and professionally really, as her dad's right hand woman. How did you develop her as a character, get inside her head and shape her as a character? What are some of the, I mean you've been doing this a while now, like what are some of the things you do to get, to develop a character like this?

Aimie: 9:42

I gave her own hopes and dreams. That was the first thing. Like I, making her an artist, that was a contrivance of my own, I have to admit. Historical fiction, we'll talk about the fiction part. I had no idea if she had any kind of aspirations of her own. But if she was smart enough for her father, who was a brilliant man, by all accounts to value her opinion and seek her advice, she had to have a lot of brains between her ears. And so I wanted to give her some ambition of her own, and I wanted to make it something that was believable. I didn't want her, I thought it would have been ridiculous to say she should have been, wanting to run the company herself. She would have never, it would have never occurred to her. To be to have more than like a running the scene, things behind the scenes sort of role, but to give her, women were allowed to pursue art and portraiture as a hobby, but her wanting to take it a step further into the professional realm and have her work exhibited publicly was where she was Ahead of her time or at least, one of the one a few because there were women who I mean like Rosa Bonheur that I mentioned in the book, they were there they were presenting art, but it was rare, but I wanted her to aspire to that, and that was like the first step. And, Ursula. Her best friend that appears in early chapters and then later chapters is really her doppelganger. And what would have happened the opposite coin, what if her mother had lived? And what if she'd been able to pursue her art? It wouldn't have been an easy road, but, she would have at least been able to give it the old college try.

Jane: 11:12

Yeah, no, that was a really interesting aspect of her story. Another aspect that is interesting without giving away spoilers is, her father's protege, Adolf, how do you pronounce his last name? Is it Sal? Yeah she's essentially, he's going to take over the business because her brother was a, kind of slacker. And so Adolf is going to take over the business. And so she ends up in what is essentially an arranged marriage. And comes to terms with that. And it sounds, eventually it sounds like they had a good relationship. And I'm just curious how much of that was based in fact, like that's like that she was pushed into this.

Aimie: 11:52

Okay. So this is also my kind of extrapolation from what I know. And first of all, Gustav's mother arranged his marriage, so that was a point that it would not have been out of character. Now, he knew his wife and she, he'd had, he'd proposed to two other women who said no. His money was too new and they were too posh. And so he told his mother, I want you to write to, an honest young woman who's not too snooty, who's willing to work hard, but, who's also genteel, and, he had this laundry list of things he wanted. And he know, he knew this young woman. She was only 17. Marguerite Goodley was only 17. He was 31. And so there was a big age, so I took the fact that his marriage was quasi arranged. And so I, I took the fact that his marriage was quasi arranged. To that, that was that opened up the possibility of her being gently shoved in this direction I don't think that gustav would have forced her but he definitely I think would have encouraged it Because he was the heir apparent because her older brother Had no talent or desire to design and his younger brother was too young to be you know To have to take over immediately, and he ended up not being interested in the business either, and they were both described in secondary sources being ne'er do well as well. The daughters were good and dutiful. The brothers were a pain. The sons were pain, and so that's where that came from, and I can imagine that. A woman who, like Claire, who so much of her life has been dictated for her because of the death of her mother, this was probably something it was a choice that she had expected to have for herself that's being taken away. And so I want to, I could imagine that would have led to some tension, her options at that point, once she realized it was the only way to protect the family legacy and to keep the family in the business in the family, that she would have resigned herself. I can marry this man and be miserable, or I can marry him and make the best of it. And she was a pragmatic woman, so she chose the latter. And I think at For all accounts was a stand up guy. He was a nice man And you know their pictures he took tons of pictures color photos in 1908 Of his wife with their children and the look of love on her face for her daughter in a particular It was the most touching thing and so I figured that there was a lot of love there in that there are not a lot of pictures of Claire and Adolf together because he was taking so many pictures.

Jane: 14:16

Interesting. So interesting. So what were the challenges? You've written about fictional characters as main characters and real people as main characters. So this whole family was a real family in history. And what were the challenges of writing about? Claire as a main character who is also a historical figure. Did you find that, do you find that more difficult? Do you find that easier? How is that for you? It's a lot more

Aimie: 14:42

pressure. I've avoided the writing an actual historical character heretofore. There are cameos by Marguerite, Marie de l'Incarnation, my first book, who was like a very famous nun. General Pershing shows up and girl's on the line, but it's cameos. So this is the first time where I have a cast of characters who are a by and large, there are a few, like Pauline the maid, Ursu, those are all figments of my imagination. But for the most part, the cast of characters are And so usually I've taken real situations and created my own heroines to, to work out the scenario for me. But in this case, I, it was a little bit of the reverse engineering and imagining. The situation that we, that was never documented, leading to the creation of something we all know well, with a cast of characters that really existed, and trying to piece together the history from what we do know, which is, there's a lot we do know, but there's a lot that we have to, extrapolate. I use that word a lot. Because some, there's a lot about Gustav, but very little about Claire herself. And you have to piece together her life from his because they were together so much, there's not like a lot of correspondence between the two in a period that was so important.

Jane: 15:56

And you said that you had to get permission from the family to access the records. Have any of them, have any of them read the manuscript or? I

Aimie: 16:04

need to send, I am actually derelict. I publicly admit I owe three copies. One to the great, whatever grandson, Sylvain. And though he's in Japan, my goodness, that's gonna be expensive. And two copies to the Musée d'Orsay that I promised, and I need to get those mails off! I'm embarrassed. I can probably admit my shame. I'm bad about getting stuff mailed, y'all. But yeah, it's Yeah they haven't read it yet. But they have a family organization whose aim is to preserve the Eiffel family legacy through, preserving the bridges and buildings that Gustav built, but also the reputation. And so that was nerve wracking. They have a whole group of people there's 70 living descendants who are very much very much care about preserving the good family name. And I hope I've done that. But you have to tap dance around some hard things like the guy that died in the building of the Eiffel Tower And the Panama canal scandal. Those are the two big ones and it was nerve wracking But I think I did the family justice without whitewashing history too much either because I don't think that they were extremely, completely faultless in these things But they weren't exactly You know the worst offenders by any chance like the guy that died totally not their fault It was not their fault. But yeah.

Jane: 17:18

Yeah. Yeah. That was an interesting aspect too. And again, I don't want to go into too much for spoilers, but Gustave, I felt as a person, like he's not really revered in the way that you would expect now because of his tarnished legacy towards the end of his career with, particularly with the Panama incidents. And think that's talk a little bit about that. It just, that's fascinating to me. Here it is, like that is the most iconic symbol of France around the world. And yet this, the man who created it. Is not put on a pedestal like so many other people in France's history.

Aimie: 17:52

Yeah. France is really good at celebrating. Paris is great at celebrating its honored sons, right? The Pantheon exists. And the state funeral for Victor Hugo Was, it was a spectacular affair, but Gustav who built a monument that is If it's not the most iconic man made monument in the history of our human existence, it's in the top five. That's still standing.

Jane: 18:16

Agree.

Aimie: 18:17

And you think about all the movies where they want to show, some big world event. And there's, but there, they go to the Great Wall of China. It's the Eiffel Tower to represent not just Paris, not just France, but sometimes all of Europe or they might do that and then Big Ben, it's right up there. And he was, I, from what I understand, his family said he was buried with all honors. He's not buried in the Pantheon. He's buried in a small cemetery in Le Valois, Paris on the north, north coast. East or northwest of Paris, I believe and you know with his family, which is probably what he would have wanted but it was a quieter celebration of life than somebody of his stature would have otherwise received The panama canal scandal wiped out the savings of almost a million parisians Or at least you know a good chunk of their savings There were people that invested their retirement funds and their life savings In order to shore up a retirement By and they were encouraged to do so by a man by the name of lucette Who was responsible for building the Panama Canal, which as or if you don't know the Darien Gap in between, that bridges North America and South America is one of the most dangerous places on earth. Disease. You've got, and now granted you've got gangs nowadays, but back then, disease angry native peoples, et cetera, and so forth. And Gustav was hired to build the locks, a specific part of The, of the Panama Canal, and he did his job. And he did it, and he was paid handsomely for it. But, ultimately, the Panama Canal was unsuccessful until the Americans came and, helped bring it about, and it's still you can't traverse that part of the world. All that easily to this day. There's not even regular ferry service. And it was a tall order that was doomed I think from the very beginning, but he did his job, but he was paid about six million francs while people had lost everything and that was part of the reason there was a strong, outcry against him And it led to things like, claims of anti semitism, etc and so forth Because he was, his family was of German extraction, several generations back. Their former, is Gustav Bönighausen, Diet Eiffel, and they adapted the Eiffel moniker when they came to France, but they, it was known that they were the Bönighausens, and so there were cries of anti Semitism and things like that. And this is in the period of the Affair de Refusal, the Adreifus Affair, that was a big, moment for anti Semitism in France as well, yeah.

Jane: 20:50

Yeah, so interesting. And again, these lesser known things I knew nothing about with the family and with Gustav himself. I have some writing questions that I always ask. You've been on here before, so you know. And if anyone has questions for Amy, please type them into the chat or the Q& A. So talk about your writing process. Are you a plotter or are you a pantser?

Aimie: 21:10

I feel like it changes from book to book. Some books, I feel like, when I started writing contemporary, I oh, I can jump in I often will map out, the important historical bits and the general arc of the story, but then leave the relationships and the friendships and all the mushy parts. To, to happen organically. And then you start writing contemporary and it's all mushy parts and no scaffolding of history. And so I had to reverse engineer some of that, like for lavender and sage, and I'm getting better at that. So I think that I like to do a certain amount of. Pre work creative work up front because it saves a lot of stress later on and the more outlining or pre work I do whether and I'm collecting images for a vision board What have you the more of that I do the more enjoyable the writing process is so I'm an aspiring plotter with deep panther tendencies But I did keep a, I had a big structure for this book in my head, like the period right around her, the death of her mother, the period after her when she's pushed into the relationship with Adolf, and then the building of the Eiffel Tower, and then the Panama Canal scandal. It was that was the arc.

Jane: 22:21

Okay, yeah, so those are like the touch points you're writing towards.

Aimie: 22:24

Yeah. As

Jane: 22:25

you're working. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. And I

Aimie: 22:27

actually jumped ahead after I got the beginning really, and got the characters situated. I jumped ahead to the Eiffel Tower. And because that was one thing I really wanted to make sure that I wasn't exhausted or rushing against deadline. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those chapters had to sparkle. And that's a technique that I decided I wanted to do after. I felt like I didn't spend enough time in the German bride schools and the school for German brides. I didn't have the page count left. And so I didn't want to condense that too much, so I jumped ahead.

Jane: 22:56

Oh, interesting. So you can jump around and write a couple chapters here and then go back and you're not, you don't have to do it linear like I do. Yeah, sometimes,

Aimie: 23:04

It's always better to do it linear because it makes the editing easier, it makes the emotional resonance flow. If you're dealing with a romantic arc, it, you gotta keep track, like, where are they? Because, it's always a ratcheting up of emotion and you don't wanna you can't go to 11 and back down to 6. On the emotional scale. You just can't. It makes it easier if you can write linearly, but I did want to get those Eiffel Tower chapters really solid before I went back and wrote up to that point.

Jane: 23:32

Interesting. Are you a Microsoft Word girl? I am a

Aimie: 23:35

Scrivener woman. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yes. I love visualizing like that I swear to goodness with my ADHD squirrel brain if it weren't for Scrivener I wrote my I started using Scrivener with my very first book and being able to visualize things scene by scene Was a game changer. It was an absolute game changer

Jane: 23:55

Yes, I always praise Scribner on this podcast. For those who don't, hasn't, haven't heard it before, Scribner is a word processing program, which is like word on steroids. There's just so much you can do for long form fiction or nonfiction. It's yeah, I probably don't use half the capabilities, but I still love it. Yeah.

Aimie: 24:12

Yeah, there's so much to learn. It's such a feature rich program, and I love color coding depending on the book different time periods, or if you're dealing with different timelines, absolutely, and being really deliberate with color choices in there, so it helps to visualize things, and spending time to set up the, I spend a half a writing day setting up a new Scrivener document when I'm starting a new project, and I look forward to it, new backgrounds, the whole thing. Yes,

Jane: 24:34

yeah, it's nice yeah. To ease your way into it, right? Yeah, exactly. I agree. So you are a very prolific writer, and you've recently ventured into contemporary fiction, as well as historical. And you have another contemporary coming out in 2025. Yes. Yes. Okay. So talk about that new one coming out and also how does like, how does it compare right in contemporary versus historical? And do you have a preference?

Aimie: 24:59

I love both and I am having so much fun in this universe. So for those of you who don't know, my first contemporary was the Memory of Lavender and Sage. Set in Provence, and it's a place I love, and it was my love letter to Provence, whereas A Baker in Paris was my love letter to Paris, followed up by Mademoiselle Eiffel, love letter part two. And The Wandering Season is a story, it starts off in my beloved Estes Park. Where I live and this woman gets a DNA kit for Christmas and her parents freak out because of what she's going to find out and she's known for quite some time because she's a smart woman that she's likely adopted given that she does not bear a strong resemblance to her family and kind of as a Moment of guilt. Her family sends her on this voyage over to Europe to visit all the places that she's from. And while she's there, she sees visions of the women from her, lineage at the moment. They decided to immigrate to America. She, she has these kind of historical visions like a woman in the 1840s in Ireland. And she goes to the southwest of France to a beautiful village, think Shukla type village. Nice. A small farm outside of Milan. And then Copenhagen, Denmark. So that's where we go to is called the wandering season for a reason. And you, because that decision, these women going to America was the decision that led to her being a person. And it's a joy journey of self discovery. Food. So she's a specialty food broker. And so there's a lot of food in my contemporary and it's so fun and it's lush. The settings and it's just a joy to write. And I'm actually working on my third contemporary right now. I've got about to sign a contract for two more contemporary books.

Jane: 26:43

Nice. And

Aimie: 26:43

which is amazing. Yeah, and so I'm very grateful to do that. I think historical is always where I've been as a reader and I love it And I will continue to write historical as long as somebody will give me a paycheck it's great to expand like I feel like writing contemporary is a bit of a breather Because there is research but it's different It's oh michelin star restaurants and you know all that sort of thing that you can find quickly online instead of painstaking agonizing You archival research which is a joy in and of itself, but it's a very different thing. So

Jane: 27:14

very different thing. Oh that's great. And congratulations on the new contract. We were

Aimie: 27:18

talking

Jane: 27:19

before we get on about this industry and it's not easy. No, it's not.

Aimie: 27:23

Yeah. I get to write two more books. I've got a 26 book coming out and I, it's I get to live to write another day. And it's an amazing feeling.

Jane: 27:32

Awesome. Awesome. Speaking of that and your, your career, I know we have aspiring authors in the audience. So what is the best advice you can give about writing and about getting published?

Aimie: 27:45

Just keep writing. It's about rear end and chair, stop aspiring, stop, I start writing is definitely big one read in your genre, read out of your genre, read to your weak areas read. But don't beat yourself up either. Find, find a group a critique group and find people that, can sympathize with you. A lot of times your family, I remember when I was first starting and everybody's looking at me like, you've got two tiny babies. And you work full time from home. You do not have a housekeeper. You do not have a full time nanny. Why? Why don't you have a toilet to scrub was literally what my mother said at one point, And it was something that I did for myself. And so you ha your fa you can't count on necessarily on your family being your first line of support because it's something so different for a lot of people. You need to find your like-minded folks and so yeah, find a critique group. Join, go to a couple conferences, don't break the bank, but go to a couple conferences and learn the trade. Learn the trade.

Jane: 28:46

All very good advice. How can readers best keep in touch with you, and I think you do Zoom with book clubs, correct? I do what, sorry? Zoom with book clubs. Do you do Zoom? Oh, I do

Aimie: 28:57

any Anytime. If you okay. If I can fit you in my schedule, I love to zoom with book clubs. If you wanna sign up for a book club, if you go to my website, which is redesigned, lovely new website, www.amykrunyon.com. And. You'll notice I'm in my green phase. It's very green. And I'm on Facebook which is my home base, though Instagram is a close second, and I'm dipping my toes in threads and blue sky. I'm not super active on the bird anymore for various reasons, but so if you send me a message there, I probably won't see it, but the other platforms, I'm fairly active, and I love interacting with my readers.

Jane: 29:36

Excellent. And yeah, no, I saw the new website. I really like it. I should also mention you have some great book club discussion questions in the back of this book. Yes, I need to

Aimie: 29:43

add some more, but yes, I have book club questions. I think that's really important to, yeah, for the clubs to have a starting point.

Jane: 29:50

I totally agree. Okay, so we have some questions here. Christine Mott, who has read your new one, by the way, and said she loved it, which is so nice asks, what was your favorite part of Paris since you love to bake? I bet trying the pastries was amazing. I love Paris.

Aimie: 30:05

I went on a tour of Paris. I ate so much in the course of six days. My poor husband is gluten free. I went nuts while he, because when I was traveling. So I ate all the macarons in Paris so you don't have to. Guys, L'Odre. L'Odre is like, yeah, you can't beat the OG. And I even tried some crazy vegan ones, like all over the place. fabulous and Angelina's chocolate macarons are a must try along with their hot chocolate. Even though, good luck getting in, but it was it's a beautiful place. And just, the Paris opera is that's one place where I walk in and it's like being a, some people might feel that way in a church. I feel that, that kind of mood, spiritual movement in the Paris Opera House. Amazing. Yeah. And that is just an important place for me. And I, I got to, I never left the United States and in fact only once ventured much further from my home than like an hour flight away until I was 18. And then I went by myself to France, like in a studied abroad. And, I went to Paris for the first time at 18 and I was studying in, in Paris or in Provence rather. And, but when I went to Paris and like seeing all these places I've been dreaming about since I was a child it was just such a moving thing. And that's why, my contemporary really is an homage to finding yourself overseas.

Jane: 31:27

Yeah, I love it. And I just was, I just saw a segment about Notre Dame opening up this weekend and that's so exciting and amazing too. Yeah, I

Aimie: 31:36

got to see Notre Dame when I was 18 and it's just one of those things where you're trying to keep it together when you're standing in a place that has seen so much history and it's so beautiful. And yeah, it's just amazing. It's astounding. It's just astounding.

Jane: 31:49

It is. It is. Couple other questions. Oh Janet asks, How did you learn to do research? I am an accidental author who has written nonfiction chapters, and I'm cautiously leaning towards writing a fictional piece.

Aimie: 32:02

I have a master's degree in French. So being convert a being very fluent in the language helps a tremendous amount. I'm writing my next two books are about the wandering season. And my next contemporary book and quite possibly my next historical book all have deep ties to Ireland. So I'm learning Irish and so I think that learning the language is super important or knowing the language just um, becoming very cozy with your library and, looking into different sources and, there's some great online tools as far as historical maps, and Google Maps to, if you, to remind, to refresh your memory while you're at home, and just walking along the streets of Montmartre with the Google Maps, I think is, it really helps I had to write most of a bakery in Paris while, International travel wasn't possible, and when we finally got to go to Momarska and the places I've been writing about, I had been so immersed in Google Maps, I felt like I knew the place like the back of my hand. It was incredible. It's such a powerful tool. It's very

Jane: 33:04

powerful. I totally agree, especially that drop down where you can walk through the street. It's amazing. Yeah, love that. Yeah, I also always say I highly recommend newspapers. com if that's always worth a subscription. It's also tied with Ancestry. com, which helps too. Those are, yeah, they're

Aimie: 33:22

very useful websites. They really are. And I actually used Ancestry a lot for, Madam Azalee fell like trying to get specific dates were I mean there was a lot of inconsistency in the dates even for this very famous family And I eventually just had to say I because there are like three different dates for this event This is the one that feels the most plausible like dates of death for people, etc I just you know had to make an executive decision, but ancestry. com did help a lot

Jane: 33:51

Yeah. Oh, interesting. What was, is there one book that you read growing up that you just adored and said it just made you think, I want to do this someday. I want to write novels.

Aimie: 34:04

Okay, so as a kid, it had to be A Royal Pain by Ellen Conford, which I probably have a copy. I need to lend it to my 11 year old. 12. God, she's 12. And it was a story about a girl who was switched at birth with a princess from a tiny municipality in in Europe. And I don't know, there was something, and there's a romance thread, and I read this when I was like 9. And I loved this. I read it to tatters and finally found an out of print copy to keep in my own collection. And just loved it. Just loved it. And then, older it was Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. And Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. If you look at my work, it's that deep commitment to historical accuracy. And, the social aspect. There's a social, even in my contemporary, there's, deeper social meaning behind a lot of the stuff.

Jane: 34:53

Yeah, interesting. Oh, what was the name of the book again? Someone asked a royal painting.

Aimie: 34:58

A Royal Pain by Ellen Conford, Ellen Conway, something like that. And I have to, it's got to be around here somewhere. It's got a girl in a wedding, a white wedding dress, holding it up and you can see like she's wearing jeans underneath and sneakers.

Jane: 35:12

Perfect. What are you reading right now? Or do you have time to read right now?

Aimie: 35:15

I, okay, so I'm an audiobook person, especially when I'm drafting. As much as I wish I read physical, I'm in my library. But I do a lot of audiobooks because there's a fair amount of driving in my life. And I'm listening to Eleanor of Avignon, very on brand and the author's name escapes me. And I'm very embarrassed because I don't know her well. I have conversed with her. But it's a story of this woman who's a midwife slash apothecary slash, medicine healer. Yeah. In the Black Death in Avignon, where I lived for a year. And the title itself Eleanor of Avignon, and it's like it's a big book pick. And the audiobook is just astounding. It's great.

Jane: 35:53

Oh, okay. That's good to know. I'm reading The Lion Women of Turan because I'm having more joy next week. Yeah. So I'm very excited. He's a friend too. She lives nearby here. Thank you. This, holiday season is crazy. So I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule and coming on tonight. This was delightful. And you have a lot of fans. I will send you some of the texts because so many lovely notes about your books and about your comments. So I will send you the texts so you can see some of them that you might have missed.

Aimie: 36:22

Yeah. And everybody, thank you so much for coming. When I heard how many people signed up, I moved. I am so moved. It's so great. And it's so great to see. I haven't been able to tour for this book, so to be able to do this is wonderful.

Jane: 36:33

Excellent. And I will send you the recording so we can both share online. Happy holidays to everyone, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and hopefully I'll see you all next week. And I hope I'll see you in person soon, Amy. Thank you again.

Aimie: 36:45

Hopefully

Jane: 36:46

soon. All right. Take care, everybody. All right. Take care, everyone.