Congratulations and thank you so much for entering in this giveaway!! To all of the other entrants, thank you so much as well for joining me here at Planet Books and entering as well. I’m sorry you didn’t win but please keep checking back as I will be hosting giveaways throughout the summer.
(I used Random.org’s List Randomizer option to get the winner.)
Hotels, limbo and waiting. They all suck when combined like they are for us. We are staying in a hotel while waiting in limbo to fly back to the states in a little over a week from now. I have been doing a lot of reading, both of review books and book blogs, watching CNN out of Hong Kong, renting The Tudors Season 2 as well as The Other Boleyn Girl and eating out for almost every meal. (I feel very full.)
I read/reviewed/posted an author Q&A and am hosting a giveaway (enter by Wednesday, May 6th @ Midnight EST HERE) of Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland and am now reading Belong To Me by Marisa De los Santos for review. I enjoyed Mistress of the Sun and am finding that Belong To Me is just fabulous.
Of course I am spending too much time browsing the Internet while in the hotel. Rocky sometimes gets jealous that I pay so much attention to the one eyed monster and brings over a toy to play or lays in my lap to distract me. I just searched author events in the DC area and am excited about what I found. If you live in the DC Metro area there are some awesome author events coming up.
The following authors will be reading and signing their new books at the Baileys Crossroads Borders:
~ Michael Connelly on May 26th @ 7:30 pm ~ George Pelecanos on June 3rd @ 7:30 pm ~ Jeffrey Deaver on June 22nd @ 7:30 pm ~ David Sedaris on June 26th @ 7:30 pmEmeril Lagasse will be at the Tyson’s Corner Borders on June 6th @ 2 pm for a signing event, and the event I might just be the most excited about is Annie Barrows, co-author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society, will be at the Tyson’s Corner Barnes & Noble on June 10th @ 7 pm.
I am also looking forward to taking some cooking classes at the Sur La Table store at Pentagon Row and learning some new recipes and techniques. We are also planning on attending a few concerts at Nissan Pavilion and Wolf Trap. It will be a busy, fun filled and exciting summer and I am ready to dive in with both feet. What are you looking forward to doing this summer?
Summary : Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland ~ In spirit, there was nothing diminutive about Louise de la Valliere, known to her family as “Petite.” A rambunctious girl who could tame the wildest stallion, the impoverished and unmarriageable Petite was also able to tame the heart of the legendary Sun King, Louis XIV. Once she had captured his eye, Petite was quickly ensconced in his court, where, as his mistress, she was elevated to a titled position. Such a meteoric rise was bound to attract attention of the wrong sort, and Petite’s life was filled with the terrors and tragedies that accompany all internecine tales of palace intrigue. Amid rumors of black magic and sorcery, loved ones would die, and Petite herself would ultimately arrive at a crossroads where she would be forced to choose between her loyalty to the king and her own personal salvation. Teeming with the rich period details that make historical fiction so rewarding, Gulland’s dynamic and nuanced portrait of Louis’ notorious reign thrums with page-turning expediency and deliciously seductive machinations. –Carol Haggas
Mistress of the Sun is a lush, engulfing and entirely entertaining example of historical fiction in it’s finest form. From the very first page I was drawn in and have enjoyed my visits (reading time) to seventeenth century France. Sandra Gulland has done it again. Having read her Josephine Bonaparte series years ago, I was extremely excited to receive a review request form Gulland’s “virtual assistant” for her newest novel, Mistress of the Sun. I was not disappointed in the least.
Gulland introduces us to “Mademoiselle Louise-Francoise La Baume Le Blanc de la Valliere” but known as Petite for short. She is the daughter of a nurturing, book loving father and a realistic mother who worries about the future and looks down upon dreaming and stories. When Petite is a young girl, she goes with her father on an errand trip when she stumbles across the a beautiful but wild and dangerous white stallion named “Diablo.” When Petite’s father brings this horse home for the family, and especially Petite, life is never the same again. After a few years of not speaking and studying at a convent, Petite recovers from her silence and is soon thrust into the world of the French royal family and discovers a love greater than any she has ever had and ever will as the mistress to King Louis XIV, the Sun King. Petite’s friendships and experiences at Court ensure great reading.
I really enjoyed this book. There is plenty of drama, character detail and wonderful descriptions in Mistress of the Sun. Reading three pages felt like I had read twenty because there is just so much detail and story in every line. If you are looking for a book to take you away this summer, Mistress of the Sun is the perfect book.
{Rating ~ 4 out of 5 stars}
Q&A with Sandra Gulland
PB – Being familiar with your Josephine Bonaparte series and now Mistress of the Sun, I am curious about what draws you to these historical French figures?
Sandra – I was drawn to Josephine because her extraordinary life had been foretold. This still astonishes me. As for Louise, of Mistress of the Sun, I was intrigued by her extraordinary horsemanship. She was described as timid, a wall-flower, and yet she became a devil on horseback. This fascinated me.
PB – When researching for your books do you start with a plot idea?
Sandra – I begin with an interest in the character, and then, in closely examining the facts of that person’s life, I begin to get an idea of a plot.
PB – Have you ever come across something you didn’t know about that caused your story to change completely?
Sandra – With every research trip I make, I have to revise completely!
When I started the Josephine B. Trilogy, I assumed that everything I read about her was true. (Novice that I was about historical research.) I struggled writing the second book (Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe). How could a good mother, a good person, do the things historians claimed? (And how, as a novelist, was I going to get the readers to believe it? A novel, unlike life, has to be credible.) Consulting with the French experts at Malmaison, I learned that “the facts” were incorrect. This caused me to change my story, but it also made the story begin to make more sense.
The most pleasant surprises are ones that make a story better. (Warning: spoiler!) Well into writing Mistress of the Sun, I read in a footnote in the Bastille Archives that Louise’s good friend Nicole ended up at the same convent as Louise.
I’m now working on a detailed scene-by-scene plot (a blueprint, I like to think of it) of my next novel. It’s forcing me to do deep research at the start and I’ve already run into a number of surprises! Fortunately, a “blueprint” is easier to revise than a full draft.
PB– In the beginning of Mistress of the Sun, Louise comes upon a dangerous and stunningly great horse named “Diablo.” The relationship between girl and horse has a mystical sense about it. Do you believe in magic and miracles yourself?
Sandra – I don’t, as a rule (but I don’t count them out, either). Louise would have believed in them, however.
PB– Besides Louise de la Vallière, which character in Mistress of the Sun was the most fun and exciting to write? What kind of connections do you feel when writing life into your characters?
Sandra– I really love Clorine, Louise’s maid. (Whose name, in real life, really was Clorine.) I love that she’s so tough, and no-nonsense, and yet often fainting.
PB – With The Tudors mini-series, and historical fiction genre films like The Duchess, Marie Antoinette and numerous others, do you wish to see either the Mistress of the Sun or the Bonaparte series go the same route?
Sandra– Yes! The Josephine B. Trilogy is now under option; the producers are looking into developing a mini-series like The Tudors. As for Mistress of the Sun, a producer is looking into making it into a movie. I’d love to see these come about. I think the Trilogy would make a wonderful mini-series, and Mistress a fantastic movie. I just hope it comes about in my lifetime. Movie-making is extremely complex: I think it’s a miracle (note: miracle) that any are ever made.
PB – So far have you enjoyed your book blog tour for Mistress of the Sun? Do you think that this way of reaching readers is beneficial for you as an author and for the publishing industry?
Sandra– A Blog Tour is excellent, given how difficult travel has become. I’ve been enjoying it. The response has been overwhelming. Thank you for having me on Planet Books!
To learn more about Sandra Gulland and her novels, be sure to check out her website HERE. Sandra is in the middle of her blog tour for Mistress of the Sun. To find out where she has been and will be in coming weeks and months, check out her schedule HERE. Sandra and her publisher, Simon & Schuster, are generously providing a copy of Mistress of the Sun, which was recently released in paperback. To enter to win Mistress of the Sun leave a comment including the title of your favorite historical novel on this post by Wednesday, May 6th at Midnight EST. Good Luck!
This past week was a tough reading week for me. I started reading Graceling by Kristin Cashore on my Kindle and I also started reading Sandra Gulland’s Mistress of the Sun for an upcoming review. Planet Books will also be a stop on Ms. Gulland’s book blog tour on April 29th.
Graceling is a young adult fantasy fiction piece that is really enticing and enjoyable so far. A “Grace” is a special gift that develops in a select few in the fantasy world of “The Seven Kingdoms” and the main character, Katsa, has the ability to kill people with her bare hands. She discovered her “Grace” when a cousin tried to have his way with her when she was eight years old. He winded up dead after a kick to the face from Katsa.
Mistress of the Sun is from the author who brought us the Josephine Bonaparte trilogy, Sandra Gulland. When I received an e-mail from her publicist I was incredibly excited and flattered that Planet Books was asked to be a stop on Ms. Gulland’s book blog tour. An old friend of mine had gifted the Bonaparte collection to me in 2002 and I really enjoyed the three books. Gulland’s latest book (to be released in paperback on Tuesday, April 7th) is an imagined telling of the life of Louise de la Valliere, mistress to Louis XIV, France’s Sun King. So far I’m really enjoying it as well. Since I am not a fan of reading more than one book at a time I put Graceling on the back burner and have only been reading Mistress of the Sun this weekend but life keeps getting in the way of my reading time.
We are getting ready to move back to the states after living in Okinawa for the last four years and all the stuff I have to do to prepare for this are keeping me from reading as much as I need to. Tomorrow I know I will have about an hour of definite reading time while I’m getting an oil change and detail service for Hubby’s car but the calendar is filling up with lunches and get togethers. So, if I don’t have much to talk about in the coming weeks regarding books, please bear with me. I will again soon.
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