France ~ Sarah's Key

Amy suggests a good book for France would be Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.  Here's her review, posted today.

Sarah's Key ~ by Tatiana de Rosnay, 2007

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.

I (Bonnie) read this book in 2010 and think it's a great novel to represent France.  Here's the first paragraph:

The girl was the first to hear the loud pounding on the door.  Her room was closest to the entrance of the apartment.  At first, dazed with sleep, she thought it was her father, coming up from his hiding place in the cellar.  He'd forgotten his keys, and was impatient because nobody had heard his first, timid knock.  But then came the voices, strong and brutal in the silence of the night.  Nothing to do with her father.  "Police!  Open up!  Now!"

France

Bonnie: "During a recent Google search, I ran across a blog ... by me! ... where I had mentioned a book two years ago: The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette by Carolly Erickson. It's a novel about France in the time of Louis XVI, the last king of France. Both he and his wife Marie Antoinette died on the guillotine during the French Revolution. Here's my review."

Imagine that, on the night before she is to die under the blade of the guillotine, Marie Antoinette leaves behind in her prison cell a diary telling the story of her life — from her privileged childhood as Austrian Archduchess to her years as glamorous mistress of Versailles to the heartbreak of imprisonment and humiliation during the French Revolution. Carolly Erickson takes the reader deep into the psyche of France’s doomed queen: her love affair with handsome Swedish diplomat Count Axel Fersen, who risked his life to save her; her fears on the terrifying night the Parisian mob broke into her palace bedroom intent on murdering her and her family; her harrowing attempted flight from France in disguise; her recapture and the grim months of harsh captivity; her agony when her beloved husband was guillotined and her young son was torn from her arms, never to be seen again.
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Marg said about The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette, "This was one case where the diary format really didn't work for me! I did find that it worked in Sandra Gulland's trilogy about Josephine Bonaparte which would also be another excellent choice to read about France."

The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. ~ When Marie-Josephe-Rose Tascher was a girl in Martinique, a voodoo priestess predicted she would be unhappily married, would then be widowed, and would become queen, an unlikely prediction. An arranged marriage takes Rose to France, where she endures her husband's infidelity and abandonment before his execution leaves her a widow. Her marriage to Napoleon concludes the novel.

Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe ~ Beginning in Paris in 1796, the saga continues as Josephine awakens to her new life as Mrs. Napoleon Bonaparte. Through her intimate diary entries and Napoleon's impassioned love letters, a portrait of an incredible woman emerges. As Napoleon marches to power, we witness, through Josephine, the political intrigues and personal betrayals that result in death, ruin, and victory for those closest to her.

The Last Great Dance on Earth ~ Married now for four tumultuous years, Napoleon is Josephine's great love, and she his. They rise to power, ultimately being crowned emperor and empress. Pressured to produce an heir, Napoleon divorces Josephine and remarries. A son is born shortly before his unsuccessful invasion of Russia, his last campaign before abdication and exile. Josephine dies in 1814, thinking about Napoleon.

France

Jill said, "Hi, Bonnie: I finished my 'France' read for this challenge: Chocolat by Joanne Harris. My review is posted on my blog. It's a wonderful tale of internal struggles in a small French village when a young woman and her daughter settle there and open up a chocolate shop - right before Lent. A wonderful read and highly recommended!"

Chocolat is a timeless novel of a straitlaced village's awakening to joy and sensuality. In tiny Lansquenet, where nothing much has changed in a hundred years, beautiful newcomer Vianne Rocher and her exquisite chocolate shop arrive and instantly begin to play havoc with Lenten vows. Each box of luscious bonbons comes with a free gift: Vianne's uncanny perception of its buyer's private discontents and a clever, caring cure for them. Is she a witch? Soon the parish no longer cares, as it abandons itself to temptation, happiness, and a dramatic face-off between Easter solemnity and the pagan gaiety of a chocolate festival. Chocolat's every page offers a description of chocolate to melt in the mouths of chocoholics, francophiles, armchair gourmets, cookbook readers, and lovers of passion everywhere.

France

Wendy said, "Set in France during the Nazi invasion, Suite Francaise was left unfinished by its famous author Irene Nemirovsky. When the manuscript was discovered, it was published along with Nemirovsky's detailed notes for the novel which was to be an epic of more than 1000 pages. A touching and important part of history, it is a good read for France. My review is here.

Suite Francaise is an extraordinary novel of life under Nazi occupation -- recently discovered and published 64 years after the author's death in Auschwitz. In the early 1940s, Irène Némirovsky was a successful writer living in Paris. But she was also Jewish, and in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz. Her two small daughters, aged 5 and 13, escaped, carrying with them, in a small suitcase, the manuscript -- one of the great first-hand fictional accounts of a way of life unraveling.

Part One, "A Storm in June," is set in the chaos of the tumultuous exodus from Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion. As the German army approaches, Parisians seize what belongings they can and flee the city, the wealthy and the poor alike searching for means to escape. Thrown together under circumstances beyond their control, a group of families and individuals with nothing in common but the harsh demands of survival find themselves facing the annihilation of their world, and human nature is revealed for what it is -- sometimes tender, sometimes terrifying.

Part Two, "Dolce," is set in a German-occupied village near Paris, where, riven by jealousy and resentment, resistance and collaboration, the lives of the townspeople reveal nothing less than the essence of the French identity. The delicate, secret love affair between a German soldier and the French woman in whose house he has been billeted plays out dangerously against the background of Occupation.