The Romantic Fiction That Was Paris...

Although I'd travelled widely in my native England, I was eighteen before I set foot outside of the UK. My first serious boyfriend arranged a romantic week for three in Paris. That's right - three. Now, before you get carried away with ideas of athletic high jinks in the land of the menage a trois, you should know something that I didn't when I signed up for this trip of my (then) short lifetime. I was booked in to share a room with his  mother. She came along to keep an eye on him - not me. It served me right for dating an early manifestation of The Big Bang Theory's Howard Wolowitz!

The Mrs W template and I had a wonderful time sightseeing, doing all the usual touristy things and ganging up on my soon-to-be ex-boyfriend. I chalked up another first on that trip when I visited a supermarket - in those days, we didn't have them where I came from. Imagine it! You can tell how long ago it was - Carrefour seemed like a fairy palace. I'd never seen so much stuff for sale in one place before.

It was all a far cry from the Paris I'd been led to expect from Paul Gallico's Flowers For Mrs Harris. I can never hear Humphrey Bogart say "We'll always have Paris..." in Casablanca without remembering my unintentionally hilarious visit, although it did sow the seed that eventually became my Harlequin Historical novel, Lady Rascal. This was originally published back in the 1990's, long before the arrival of ereaders, so I've just brought out an ebook version.  Here's a taste of it -

Finding herself in a Parisian dressmaker's shop, poverty-stricken Madeleine has grabbed the chance to dress up in the glamorous accessories and impractical shoes she has only been able to dream about until now...

 Madeleine suddenly saw something she couldn’t live without a moment longer. Picking up one of the candles, she took three wobbling steps out from behind the safety of the counter. Balancing precariously in front of a long mirror, she took down the wisp of gossamer that hung beside it.

It was a shift of some description, needing only the hem to be finished. But what a shift! Almost transparent, the fine fabric rippled through Madeleine’s gloved fingers like water. It was all she needed to complete her outfit.

In a moment her work dress of coarse brown stuff had been cast aside. It took her a few minutes to work out how to get into the shift, which had no fastenings but pulled on over her head. At last she managed, arranging the folds of fabric about her painfully thin body.

It clung to her like pale mist, flowing with every movement and making graceful her stumbling steps in the borrowed shoes. She was entranced, and so beguiled that the running footsteps outside went unnoticed. Only when a foreign voice called out very close at hand did she jump out of her dream.

Then panic turned her to water. To be found here, dressed like this would be certain death. Like an idiot she had not thought to douse the candles, and now it was too late.

The door flew and a large shadow rippled through the shop towards her.

With a scream Madeleine dropped the candle she held...

I’d love to hear what you think of Lady Rascal, and whether you have ever looked forward to a romantic moment only to have it turn out very differently?  There's a signed copy from my backlist for a comment picked at random.

Christina Hollis has written both Historical fiction and Modern Romance/Presents for Harlequin Mills and Boon Ltd. She loves to hear from readers - you can contact her through her website.