Festival du Roman Feminin

This past weekend I flew to Paris for the Festival du Roman Feminin. This is my third year attending the event and it never disappoints. I'm so thrilled that they have welcomed me back each year, it's been so nice to see the festival growing as well. The organizers are all romance readers, authors and bloggers and the French readers are really enthusiastic about the romance genre.

For the first time my husband was able to come with me. And we had a lot of fun on our flight from the UK to Paris. It's only 45 minutes which meant we only had enough time for a glass of champagne and these yummy snacks!

We had dinner the first night with my good friend Annie West, you probably know her from her fabulous books for Harlequin Presents. Her husband was there as well and had scoped out some restaurants near our hotel and we ended up eating in a place called John John John which we had all joked sounded like a funny name for a restaurant but the food was delicious and we had a great time talking and laughing the evening away.

The next day it was time for me to get my author glam on. I spoke on two panels the first day. The first one was creating a dynamic story in under 200 pages. Since I have been writing novels of this length for over 20 years I had a lot to say. And the moderator Francoise had found some lovely images of my French covers that she flashed up when I spoke. I was on the panel with Annie West, Alison Roberts and Susan Carlisle.

In the afternoon I was on a second panel that was about the reunion romance or second-chance at love story. I talked about my Tycoon Cowboy's Baby Surprise which was a lot of fun. It was interesting to hear how the other authors dealt with bringing two lovers who couldn't make it work the first time back together.

That night HarperCollins France invited a group of us to a cocktail party on the bank of the Seine and it was so much fun. We laughed and talked all night and then ended the evening with dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant near our hotel. It was delicious. :)

The next day started early with another panel. This one was on billionaires and if they were the princes of the modern age. I had a good time talking about this topic with Nancy Herkness who writes a fabulous billionaire series. I spoke about one of my favorite billionaires Gui from The Spanish Aristocrat's Woman. I told the audience how just showering the heroine with expensive gifts, dinners and trips aren't enough to win her over, he has to find a gift that speaks to her in a way that nothing else can. In Gui's case he had a illuminated manuscript made for Kara that was deeply personal. Honestly, this is one of my favorite books I've written. It was even made into a Magna in Japanese and then as an ebook in English.

My last event at the festival was a Meet & Greet and book signing. I sighed copies of Summer in Manhattan in English and The Tycoon's Fiancee Deal in French. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed seeing readers that I had met in the last two years as well as meeting some new people. One thing that I love about the French readers is how wonderful they are about my lack of ability to speak French. One of my favorite readers Beatrice brought me a bottle of wine which Rob & I enjoyed later that night in our hotel room.

It was a lovely weekend and so much fun to get out and hang out with a group that loves the romance genre as much as I do. I loved it! Hope to see you all again next year!