Parisian Phoenix Publishing

*Two books* have finished the final proof stage and should be heading to the printer/distributor this weekend— Trapped, our first contemporary romance and our first pocket book, and as if that’s not enough excitement about this book… it also has photographs by the amazing Joan Zachary featuring the residents of Plastiqueville AND Recovery, the third volume in the Fashion and Fiends series.

Trapped follows the traditional romance conventions but features characters in their forties, characters who aren’t gorgeous, characters who have emotional baggage. Full of humor and the kind of daffy drama we all face in our real lives, Trapped looks at life in a blue collar neighborhood of a dying Pennsylvania steel town (modeled after South Bethlehem) and weaves in themes of “the gig economy,” body image, alcoholism, single dad life, environmentalism, loss of farmland, while making the reader laugh and commiserate.

Recovery sheds some of the dark urban fantasy vibe of the series’ first volume and follows Dr. Jacqueline Saint-Ebène through her sister Basilie’s recovery and her brother-in-law Étienne’s supernatural shenanigans. And if you’ve read Manipulations and/or Courting Apparitions, let me offer you this note: baby d’Amille makes his entrance into the world in this novel.

The readers will continue to follow Étienne d’Amille and his ex-wife/lover Basilie (and now their offspring) but they will also drop deep into Jacqueline’s life as a doctor in the French military’s health service. The quaint Pennsylvania environment that served as a backdrop in the first two novels no longer anchors the setting as the characters spend time in Paris and travel to Djibouti on the Horn of Africa.

This unique region of the world does not appear in any media often, and the details depicted in the novel are based in part on personal experience and in part on dedicated research into French post-colonial Africa.

This novel explores Jacqueline’s romantic entanglements— and examines the perceived conflicts of Muslim vs. Christian, African vs. European and the cultural traditions and attitudes of both.

This book looks at the realities of motherhood, sexuality and being a woman in different parts of the world.

As publishers, we hope to have both books out for your Valentine’s Day pleasure.