Sunday Salon: Spell the Month in Books - July

Reviews From the Stacks

For 2025 I have decided to have a go at Spell the Month in Books which is hosted at Reviews From the Stacks. The link party opens on the first Saturday of the month, but I won't be posting until after that as I already have other things scheduled every Saturday and for the first two Sundays of the month. I will be sharing this post with Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz.

The idea is that you use the title of books to spell the month name. The theme  for July is set in a fantasy world or fictional place! Given that I am participating in Paris in July, all of these books have a French connection. Now I am not suggesting that France is fictional, but I am always dreaming of visiting it so that makes it my fantasy right?

We won't talk about the fact that I had to cheat a little bit for the J and the Y. Shhhh!

A Wish Upon Jasmine by Laura Florand - A few years ago now I had a massive reading slump that lasted a good couple of years. I think one year I only read about 10 books. Laura Florand was one of the few authors I was still reading. I really enjoyed all of her books which combined France and chocolate and perfume! This book is the second book in the La Vie en Roses series. I wish she was still writing now. 

Under a Riviera Moon by Helen McGinn - I read this book earlier this year. It was the first I had read by this author who is a wine expert and appears on British TV. (my review)

Lunch in Paris: A Delicious Love Story, with Recipes by Elizabeth Bard - It's hard to believe I read this book 14 years ago now, but it's true. I originally posted about this book and linked it up to Paris in July back in 2011. This is the story of a woman whom move to France for love, the fabulous food she ate and the challenges that she faced. I still love this cover. (my review)

The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes - This is a dual timeline where the historical time frame is WWI France (my review)

August's theme is Written by your favorite author(s). Finding two U books is going to be very challenging I think!

Will you be joining us?

Six Degrees of Separation: Butter to Tales from the Cafe

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best. The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

The starting point for this month is Butter by Asako Yuzuki, a book that I really want to read! Let's see where our journey takes us

My first link is based on the subtitle of Butter which is A Novel of Food and Murder. Recently I read Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge which features an amateur detective investing a murder.

For my second choice, I am focusing on the detective aspect, but fortunately there is not a body in sight. Instead, the detectives in the Kamogawa Food Detectives are searching for the perfect meal which lives in the memories of their clients

Next, I am taking a trip down my own memory lane and choosing to think about a memorable meal of my own. When we were in Paris we had a lunch at a Michelin star restaurant across the road from our hotel. So my choice is Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard

You know I wouldn't be able to resist a link to Paris. The question is which Paris book! In the end I decided to go with Mrs Harris Goes to Paris by Paul Gallico.

My next link is to The Women in Black by Madeleine St John. The connection here is around high end fashion. One of the reason why this book came to mind is that there is going to be a new TV series inspired by the book. I love the movie so definitely plan to watch the TV series when it stars in a couple of weeks.

My final link is based purely on the colour of the cover, but I did like that it is from a Japanese author which ties back to the starting book for this month. My final choice is therefore Tales from the Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. This is the second book in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. As an aside I was very excited to see that the next book in the series recently became available to pre order. Its called Before We Forget Kindness.

Next month the starting point is Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck

Where did your chain take you this month?

Top Ten Tuesday: 10th Birthday edition

Happy birthday to Top Ten Tuesday! 10 years this week. That's quite a run. Top Ten Tuesday originally started at The Broke and the Bookish but then moved to The Arty Reader Girl in 2018. This week there are a couple of suggested topics, but there is also the freedom to improvise a bit.

While I had been aware of Top Ten Tuesday, I didn't actually start participating until this year, and even then it isn't every week. So, in total, I have participated eleven times. So I thought that what I might do is post one book from every Top Ten Tuesday I have participated in, so in effect a Top Eleven of Top Tens!

The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan - This was one of my choice for the first time I participated when the theme was most anticipated releases for the first half of 2020. I picked this book for today's because it is one that I have read and loved.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell - Featured on my 10 newest additions to my TBR pile post back in February. It also featured on a couple of other lists which is why I have included it today.

The Sweet Life by Kate Bracks - For the book cover freebie topic in February I chose to spotlight some cookbooks off my shelf. This book has one of my favourite recipes in it -  Lemon Syrup Cakes. So lemony. So delicious..

The Moon Sister by Lucinda Riley - The theme this time was the books on my TBR I think will be 5/5 reads. I am currently listening to this book so the jury is still out. It's definitely good though. The question will be how good.

Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes. by Elizabeth Bard -  This was a love freebie and I chose to do books with a variation of the word love in the title. And the reason I chose this today? Because I would love to be having lunch in Paris today. Even though it isn't possible for many many reasons.

Circe by Madeleine Miller - Featured in my list of books with one word titles. So good.

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley - Just one of the many books I highlighted in my post about the top 10 reasons I love historical fiction. One of my favourite books of all time.

The Lost Love Song by Minnie Darke - The theme for the week that I chose this book was opening lines and I am sharing it today as this is probably my favourite book of the year. The opening line for this book is

The love song began it's life, not with a fanfare or a crash of cymbals, but instead with a knock at a door.

The Lost Pearl by Emily Madden - my theme for this post was I want to go there. In this case, there was Hawaii which has been on my visit list for a long time.

Henrietta's War by Joyce Dennys - This book featured in my list of books which had been lingering unread on my bookshelves and I couldn't remember why it was there. My post title was Maybe I should read it. And guess what. I did. And it was good!

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo - This was one of my books on the winter 2020 TBR pile. It's still there, but I will get to it!

So there you go. A selection of books I have mentioned in the eleven times I have participated in Top Ten Tuesday.

Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard

′The chocolate centre flows like dark lava onto the whiteness of the plate. The last ounce of stress drains from my body....I have discovered the French version of Death by Chocolate.′


Part love story, part wine-splattered cookbook, LUNCH IN PARIS is a deliciously tart, forthright and funny story of falling in love with a Frenchman and moving to the world′s most romantic city - not the Hollywood version, but the real Paris, a heady mix of blood sausage and irregular verbs.


From gutting her first fish (with a little help from Jane Austen) and battling bad-tempered butchers to discovering heavenly chocolate shops, Elizabeth Bard finds that learning to cook and building a new life as a stranger in an even stranger land have a lot in common. Along the way she learns the true meaning of home - and the real reason French women don′t get fat ...


Peppered with recipes to die for, this mouth-watering love story is the perfect treat for any woman who has ever suspected that lunch in Paris could change her life.

Once upon a time I used to read a lot of books like this. A woman changes her life by moving to a new country, learns to cook and ends up having a fabulous life. It has however been years since I have done so, mainly because I realised that I was torturing myself because I did the moving countries thing, I didn't learn to cook all that well and I am still waiting for the fabulousness to arrive! (well, maybe that is being a bit overly dramatic, but you know what I mean).

I remember reading books like Under the Tuscan Sun by Francis Mayes and literally spending hours trawling the internet imagining exactly what I would do when I got to Tuscany. That was at least 8 or 9 years ago, and I still haven't left Australia again. Really the torturing myself is because I can't see a way where I will be able to go on holidays to somewhere exciting any time soon. This book made me want to spend hours googling pictures of Paris and France and wishing that I could go there now. I was already feeling that way after watching the Tour de France and participating in Paris in July - now the longing is almost palpable.

The full title of this book is Lunch in Paris: A Delicious Love Story, with Recipes and it is exactly as it advertises!

Elizabeth Bard is a young American woman living in London when she meets Gwendal, a Frenchman. Soon she finds herself travelling back and forward between London, New York and Paris until it comes time to make the move to Paris itself.

What follows in the book is a tale of how fantastic it can be to be discovering the Paris behind the tourist trails, but also the small, and some times, large trials that face Elizabeth as she tries to find her place in a very different culture to the one she is used to. The major obvious difference is the language, but there are also major differences in relation to work, ambition, lifestyle, about eating for pleasure rather than function and so much more! Another subject that received a fair amount of page time - how do French women stay thin and glamorous looking!

When I was living overseas I didn't have the issues around language that Elizabeth Bard did, but there were certainly cultural differences that some times were difficult to navigate, and there were definitely times, especially just after I came home again, when I didn't really feel like I belonged in either place anymore.

This book was so much fun to read, and oh my goodness, the food and the recipes had me licking my lips. It all sounded so fantastic!

There are so many recipes I want to try. Just for fun I am going to give the French names of a few of the recipes and you can give your best guesses as to what they are in the comments! I'll add the English names of the recipes after the weekend is over.

Parfaits au Yauort et aux Fruits Rouges

Gateua au Yaourt

Travers de Porc au Miel

Moulleuz au Chocolate "Kitu"

Financiers aux Framboises

Souris d'Agneau a l'Orange et a la Badiane

There are very few books that I read from the library that I wish I owned, but this is definitely one of them. I think I might buy it some time soon. Actually, having just spent a little time going through and looking for recipes I might like to try, I think I am definitely going to have to buy this book as I am up to page 105 and I already have a list more than 10 recipes long. It almost feels like I could possibly do some French cooking! How exciting.

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.


Paris in July is a month long event hosted by Karen from Book Bath and Tamara from Thyme for Tea, which invites the participants to celebrate all things French!