Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Book Tour & Giveaway for The Greenland Breach by Bernard Besson



Join author Bernard Besson on his Virtual Book Tour for The Greenland Breach, presented by France Book Tours, from October 28- November 6.  Please be sure to leave a comment or question for Bernard to let him know you stopped by.  You can enter the giveaway by filling out the Rafflecopter form below.  You can also follow the tour here


The Greenland Breach
By Bernard Besson

Publisher:  Le French Book
Release Date: October 23, 2013

Genre: Political Espionage/Thriller
Isbn: 978-1-939474-94-0 (Kindle)
Isbn: 978-1-939474-95-7 (epub)
Length: 113,000 words/285 pages

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About the Book: 

What does global warming really mean for geopolitics? Espionage, intrigue, economic warfare and behind-the-scenes struggles for natural resources. In this stylish, fast-paced tale, a plausible vision of climate catastrophe combines with French freelance spies and Bond-like action forming a gripping page-turner of a thriller.

The Arctic ice caps are breaking up. Europe and the East Coast of the Unites States brace for a tidal wave. Meanwhile, former French intelligence officer John Spencer Larivière, his karate-trained, steamy Eurasian partner, Victoire, and their bisexual computer-genius sidekick, Luc, pick up an ordinary freelance assignment that quickly leads them into the heart of an international conspiracy. Off the coast of Greenland, a ship belonging to the French geological research firm Terre Noire is in serious trouble. The murder of an important scientist jeopardizes evacuation. Is it related to the firm’s explorations? Is the rival Canadian-based scientific and economic development corporation, Northland Group, involved?

On land another killer is roaming the icy peaks after researchers, while a huge crevasse splits Greenland apart. What are the connections? In the glacial silence of the great north, a merciless war is being waged. Global warming and subsequent natural disasters hide international rivalries over discoveries that will change the future of humanity. This riveting thriller by prizewinning novelist and former top-level French intelligence officer is like a French-style James Bond team walking into Ronald Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow, but much closer to home.


Buy Links:  LeFrench Book │Amazon 






Author and translator bios

Award-winning thriller writer Bernard Besson, who was born in Lyon, France, in 1949, is a former top-level chief of staff of the French intelligence services, an eminent specialist in economic intelligence and Honorary General Controller of the French National Police. He was involved in dismantling Soviet spy rings in France and Western Europe when the USSR fell and has real inside knowledge from his work auditing intelligence services and the police. He has also written a number of prize-winning thrillers and several works of nonfiction. He currently lives in the fourteenth arrondissement of Paris, right down the street from his heroes.
Author page: http://www.lefrenchbook.com/our-authors/bernard-besson/


Julie Rose is a prize-winning, world-renowned translator of major French thinkers, known for, among other works, her acclaimed translation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, which was published by Random House in 2008. She has translated twenty-eight books, including many French classics, and writes on the side. She lives in her hometown of Sydney, Australia, with her husband, dog and two cats.




My Review

Focusing on events leading to the end of the world as we know it, Bernard Besson’s The Greenland Breach is a well written corporate/political espionage thriller. Told from multiple points of view, and taking place in multiple settings, Mr. Besson’s characters are well developed and engaging.  Good dialogue and an interesting mystery kept me turning the pages to discover what was going to happen next.

When partners and lovers, John Spencer Larivière and Victoire Augagneur, are offered a large sum of money for a “freelance job” by the CEO of Northland, an oil and gas company, they can’t agree on whether or not they should take the job.  While John stresses the need their small consulting firm, Fermatown, has for both cash and clients, Victoire suspects their job may involve more than just “babysitting” the CEO’s daughter.  After accepting the job, they are then asked to “obtain” information on what Northland’s rival, French company Terre Noire, has aboard their ship, the Bouc-Bel-Air.  Soon John, Victoire and Luc, Fermatown’s computer specialist, find themselves in the middle of a global conspiracy while the world’s shifting climate begins to tear everything apart. 

While slowly paced through the opening chapters, Mr. Besson’s story picks up the pace as the events taking place in both Greenland and the rest of the world heat up.  John, Victoire and Luc soon find themselves neck deep in danger, with John facing the most danger when he heads to Greenland to try to get to the truth.  While a silent villain, it’s clear that corporate greed, man’s lack of concern over the environment, and progress itself have brought everything to a cataclysmic point.

Will John be able to outsmart and outmaneuver the agents hired by their competition?  Will Victoire and Luc be able to provide John with backup when he needs it?  And what will happen to us all when two rival companies are determined to decide the world’s fate based on what they discover in the deepest ice from Greenland? You’ll have to read The Greenland Breach to find out.  I enjoyed it and look forward to reading more of Mr. Besson’s work.


My Rating: 4 out of 5 Crowns


FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley.  


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Sunday, November 3, 2013

Book Tour & Giveaway for Paris Was The Place by Susan Conley


Join author Susan Conley on her virtual tour for Paris Was the Place, presented by France Book Tours from October 28 – November 6, 2013.  Please leave a comment or question for Susan to let her know you stopped by.  I’m giving away my gently used, looks like new, hardcover copy of Paris Was the Place to a randomly chosen commenter.  Please be sure to leave your email address with your comment.  The winner will be chosen on Wednesday, November 6th at the end of the tour.  You can follow the rest of the tour here


Paris Was the Place
By Susan Conley

Publisher: Knopf
Release Date: August 6, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-307-59407-5
Genre: Literary Fiction
Length : 368 Pages

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About the Book:

With her new novel, Paris Was the Place (Knopf, 2013), Susan Conley offers a beautiful meditation on how much it matters to belong: to a family, to a country, to any one place, and how this belonging can mean the difference in our survival. Novelist Richard Russo calls Paris Was the Place, “by turns achingly beautiful and brutally unjust, as vividly rendered as its characters, whose joys and struggles we embrace as our own.”

When Willie Pears begins teaching at a center for immigrant girls in Paris all hoping for French asylum, the lines between teaching and mothering quickly begin to blur. Willie has fled to Paris to create a new family, and she soon falls for Macon, a passionate French lawyer. Gita, a young girl at the detention center, becomes determined to escape her circumstances, no matter the cost. And just as Willie is faced with a decision that could have dire consequences for Macon and the future of the center, her brother is taken with a serious, as-yet-unnamed illness. 

The writer Ayelet Waldman calls Paris Was the Place “a gorgeous love story and a wise, intimate journal of dislocation that examines how far we’ll go for the people we love most.” Named on the Indie Next List for August 2013 and on the Slate Summer Reading List, this is a story that reaffirms the ties that bind us to one another.  

Buy Links: AmazonBarnes & Noble



Author bio

Susan Conley is a writer and teacher. Her memoir, The Foremost Good Fortune (Knopf 2011), chronicles her family’s experiences in modern China as well as her journey through breast cancer. The Oprah Magazine listed it as a Top Ten Pick, Slate Magazine chose it as "Book of the Week," and The Washington Post called it "a beautiful book about China and cancer and how to be an authentic, courageous human being." Excerpts from the memoir have been published in The New York Times Magazine and The Daily Beast.

Susan’s writing has also appeared in The Paris Review, The Harvard Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Gettysburg Review, The North American Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. A native of Maine, she earned her B.A. from Middlebury College and her M.F.A. in creative writing from San Diego State University. After teaching poetry and literature at Emerson College in Boston, Susan returned to Portland, where she co-founded and served as executive director of The Telling Room, a nonprofit creative writing center. She currently teaches at The Telling Room and at the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA Program.

Contact Information



My Review
Paris Was the Place by Susan Conley is a contemporary featuring an American heroine trying to discover her place in life in a foreign country.  Written in first person narrative, we meet Willow “Willie” Pears, a young woman who feels the need to connect with family after her mother’s death.  Following Luke, her older brother, and Sara, her best friend from college, to Paris, gives Willie the opportunity to not only get to know herself, it gives her a chance to spend time with the ones she loves.  Fortunate in obtaining employment, Willie soon finds herself talked into teaching English at a center for illegal immigrant girls seeking French asylum.  Something which becomes a  turning point in Willie’s life.

Ms. Conley does an excellent job developing Willie’s character.  As she begins to work with the young immigrant girls, she finds herself reminiscing about her childhood and family experiences.  She also finds her emotions blurring the lines between being someone’s teacher and becoming someone’s emotional surrogate mother.  Drawn to the girls by the horrors they’ve endured, Willie wants to help them all fight for the right to live in a more safe and optimistic environment.

Complicating Willie’s involvement with the girls, she soon becomes romantically involved with Macon Ventri, the young girls French immigration lawyer.  While both Willie and Macon want to be able to help the girls remain in Paris, they don’t always agree about how things should be done and the author highlights their differences.  Macon comes across as more experienced and worldly, while Willie’s clearly more naïve and occasionally foolish.

Will Willie and Macon’s relationship survive and grow in spite of the danger Willie puts them in?  Will Luke’s illness finally force Willie to make peace with the one parent left in their lives?  You’ll have to read Paris Was The Place to find out.  While a little bit long, and a little slow paced, it is a very interesting story. 

My Rating:  3.5 out of 5 Crowns




FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book as a part of a book tour in exchange for a fair and honest review.




Don't forget to leave a comment or question for Susan to let her know you stopped by.  I’m giving away my gently used, looks like new, hardcover copy of Paris Was the Place to a randomly chosen commenter.  Please be sure to leave your email address with your comment.  The winner will be chosen on Wednesday, November 6th at the end of the tour.  You can follow the rest of the tour here