The Lost Girl in Paris and a Frenchwoman of a certain age you won’t forget by Jina Bacarr
November 11, 2021 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing
When I was studying the art of kimono and Japanese dance, I remember asking my sensei, teacher, how long a geisha could work at her profession of song and dance.
‘For as long as she wishes,’ she said. ‘I know a geisha in her nineties.’
‘There’s no work discrimination because of her age?’
‘None.’
‘Why?’
‘Because a geisha is ageless.’
Yes… ageless. I thought of that often when I was writing THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS. My heroine is a famed parfumier who is eighty when we open in New York City in 2003. It’s a world when cellphones weren’t the norm, texting was in its infancy, the Concorde made flights from New York to Paris… and memories of the Holocaust were still vivid in the minds of many survivors.
Like Madame de Cadieux.
A woman who survived both Auschwitz and Dachau, but never spoke about it until she meets a young reporter named Emma Keane who touches a nerve in her that now is the time to speak about those times. Her memories are as vivid to this eighty-year-old as if she were the seventeen-year-old girl who ran away to Paris to become a parfumier after losing her mother to the Nazi war machine.
I wrote THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS to pay tribute to the strong women who survived the Holocaust and willingly shared their stories with us. The horror of Nazi brutality, the loss of family, their dignity… but also about their strength just to ‘survive another day’. And the strong bonds with their sisters-in-arms they formed with fellow prisoners. How they learned to trust each other and stood up against the enemy to save each other.
Like the geisha, these women are ageless.
We must never forget.
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Here is a short excerpt from THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS:
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Love Forties Fiction?
A girl from a controversial upbringing becomes a famous perfumer during the war when she comes to Paris in 1940 to escape the Gestapo. Then how she uses perfume to do her part to win the war…
THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS is up for pre-order on Amazon!
Release date: November 30, 2021US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09B1QDRVW/
UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09B1QDRVW/CA https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B09B1QDRVW/
Australia https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B09B1QDRVW/——————
Over 500 ratings on Amazon UK!The Resistance Girl
Juliana discovers her grandmamma was a famous French film star in Occupied Paris & her shocking secret…
US https://amzn.to/2FoKKeS0 0 Read more
Perfume: what you never expected to find in a World War II novel set in Occupied Paris by Jina Bacarr
October 11, 2021 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as historical fiction, Paris, perfume, Resistance, World War 2
I’ve had a zillion jobs in my career.
US Army rec specialist in Europe, AM/FM radio commercial artist, traveling cosmetic saleslady for a French company, club dancer, soap opera player, writer for kids’ TV…
And perfume model.
So, what does a perfume model do?
The gig started when I got a call from the modeling agency I worked for asking me if I was available to introduce a new perfume. Since I was freelancing for a travel magazine company in Beverly Hills back then, I jumped every time the agency called me with a perfume job.
The pay was good. The hours ranged from four to six hours a day. The location was always a posh department store (remember Bullocks, I Magnin’s?), and occasionally, I’d get to wear wardrobe from the couture department to complement the color scheme and theme of the perfume.
I felt like a film star.
After a session with the perfume rep explaining their marketing campaign, off I went. Sashaying around the store like I was walking on the red carpet. I’d engage customers in small talk and introduce them to the perfume.
I’d spray it on their wrist – or mine if they preferred – and then gave them a sample. It wasn’t easy. I was snubbed by snooty women, hit on by male customers, and constantly asked, ‘Where is the ladies room?’
By the end of my shift – toes squashed in three-inch heels – my feet were killing me.
But I loved it. The customers were enchanted by the quick whiff of a new fragrance and loved being whisked away for a moment of glamour. I’d regale them with my stories about Paris and the Belle Époque department stores I visited along with the history of perfume.
And the different notes of the perfume. Top, heart, base.
I soon discovered you didn’t sell the steak… perfume, that is… but the sizzle. The mystique, the mood. I had to evoke an emotional response in the customer and I did it by storytelling and learning as much as I could about perfume. How it’s manufactured, the ingredients, what that perfume can do for that customer to make her happy, feel sexy. Powerful. Loved. I became an amateur ‘nose’, learning about the different scents and essences and how they configure in varying ratios to make up a lovely new fragrance.
I used that perfume experience to create parfumier Angéline de Cadieux when I wrote ‘The Lost Girl in Paris’.
How a girl from a controversial upbringing becomes a famous perfumer during the war when she comes to Paris in 1940 to escape the Gestapo. Then how she uses perfume to do her part to win the war…
THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS is up for pre-order – and my just-revealed cover is on Amazon!
Release date: November 30, 2021
US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09B1QDRVW/
UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09B1QDRVW/
CA https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B09B1QDRVW/
Australia https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B09B1QDRVW/
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Photo credits:
Jina Bacarr: Laura Burke Photography
Background: ID 137251284
© Viktoriya Panasenko | Dreamstime.com
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Nearly 500 ratings on Amazon UK!
The Resistance Girl
Juliana discovers her grandmamma was a famous French film star in Occupied Paris & her shocking secret…
The toughest book I’ve ever written… by Jina Bacarr
September 11, 2021 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as books, pars, perfume, writing
Sometimes there are no words for how you feel… and a picture says it best.
Tonight I got hit by a double whammy.
9/11 and Dachau.
I watched two TV shows back to back… the first dealing with the fabulous documentary on CNN by French filmmakers and brothers, Gédéon and Jules Naudet, and firefighter James Hanlon. on 9/11 and the New York Fire Department… exceptional and gripping filmmaking.
And next a story about World War 2 shot in color by Hollywood director, George Stevens, and what he filmed when he visited Dachau in May 1945.
What do they have in common?
Well, this story will post on 9/11 on the 20th anniversary and I can’t not take a few moments to stop and ask for a moment of silence for all those who died… and those who survived who still have nightmares and heavy hearts. It’s something we do every year and this year it’s especially important.
May we never forget.
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The second TV show has to do with the toughest book I ever had to write. It’s about a beautiful perfumer who fights the Nazis, is arrested and sent to Dachau… I won’t give away the story except to say my heroine’s ability as a ‘nose’ or perfume creator gives her a different perspective on what survivors of the Holocaust experienced. Her talent puts her in a unique situation to tread on a different plane when she’s sent to the infamous concentration camp near Munich, Germany.
And how she survives…
Doing the research for my book was a soul-searching experience that makes me grateful for every day lived, every meal I enjoy…. every night of blissful sleep. No one coming for you… no beatings, degradation and humiliation (especially the treatment of women by SS guards) no rationing of the simplest things, no privacy, and for so many, no hope.
What sent me into tears tonight was when I saw the liberation of Dachau in color… the camp prisoners’ striped ‘pajamas’, the beetle-green German uniforms, the pure white snow… scorched red brick buildings… the hot yellow flames still burning in the crematoriums.
It was chilling.
What made this book so tough to write goes beyond just reading about the horror these people endured. I tried on a very small scale to experience the physical and mental emotions… wearing the same sweats and socks for a few days, not leaving the house, rationing my food to a bare minimum, deactivating social media to cut myself off so I’d have no idea what was happening the world. Setting my alarm to wake myself at odd hours to get a feeling of the uncertainty of life.
I was a mess in a few days.
I want to emphasize what I did was on an extremely small scale compared to the reality of the camps, but the hunger and feeling unclean and the loneliness became very real to me. It gave me a better perspective on how quickly lives changed when innocent, hard-working good people were rounded up — Jews, Roma, LGBT, political dissidents… even German citizens who simply spoke out against the Reich.
How some were sent to their death immediately, while others went to labor camps, a slow death. (‘You don’t come to Auschwitz to live,’ they said, ‘but to die’.) The prisoners in the camps endured unspeakable conditions for months… years.
So many were lost.
But so many did survive.
And it’s their stories I listened to, watched in documentaries, read in first person accounts. I urge you to do so, too.
We must never forget the Holocaust.
And unite in a sisterhood of remembrance. And never, ever, let it happen again.
Jina
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My new Paris WW 2 novel is called THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS and is up on Amazon for pre-order. I don’t have a cover yet, but here’s a graphic I put together and the blurb:
‘I will never forget what the Nazi did to me. Never‘
1940, Nazi-occupied Paris. A powerful story of love, tragedy and incredible courage, about one woman whose life is ripped apart by war and risks everything to seek justice. Brand new from the bestselling author of The Resistance Girl.
As Nazis patrol the streets of the French capital, Tiena is alone, desperate and on the run. After defending herself against the force of an officer, she must find a new identity in order to survive.
An accidental meeting with members of the Resistance gives her a lifeline, as she is offered the chance to reinvent herself as perfumer Angéline De Cadieux.
However Angéline will never forget what happened to her, and will do everything she can to seek revenge. But vengeance can be a dangerous game, and Angeline can only hide her true identity for so long before her past catches up with her, with some devastating consequences…
Paris, 2003. When the opportunity arises for aspiring journalist Emma Keane to interview world renowned perfumer Madame De Cadieux about her life during World War Two, she is determined to take it. There are secrets from her own family history that she hopes Angéline may be able to help unlock.
But nothing can prepare Emma for Angéline’s story, and one thing is for certain – it will change her own life forever…
An absolutely heartbreaking, unforgettable historical novel of war, sacrifice and survival. Perfect for fans of Suzanne Goldring, Ella Carey and Catherine Hokin.
US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09B1QDRVW/
UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09B1QDRVW/
2 0 Read moreA Paris video memory from my student days in France that made it into ‘The Resistance Girl’ by Jina Bacarr
August 11, 2021 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Paris novels, Writing tagged as Forties fiction, France, historical, Paris, romance, video, writing, WW 2What favorite memories have made it into your stories and books? Let me know!
Bonus video:
UPDATED:
The WW 2 letter that inspired HER LOST LOVE (CHRISTMAS ONCE AGAIN): re: Veronica Jorge’s wonderful comment about my story! Thanks, Veronica!
Writing a Dual Timeline Novel ain’t a piece of cake… 7 tips for writing two different eras at once by Jina Bacarr
July 11, 2021 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as dual timeline, edting, France, historical, novel, Paris, timeline, World War 2, writing
I’ve written time travel and loved it… Her Lost Love when my heroine takes a magic train from 1955 back to 1943 to Posey Creek, PA to save the man she loves from being killed in France… and present day back to the Battle of Antietam in 1862 where my heroine meets her ‘twin’ who’s a Confederate spy… and also historical fiction about the Titanic The Runaway Girl.
But writing a dual timeline is like walking barefoot on broken seashells on the sand.
Painful. Excruciating. And dangerous.
You can end up hobbling all the way home… or to the end of your manuscript. Yikes.
I’ve been there… and survived. I’ve written two dual timeline novels — The Resistance Girl and the novel I just finished (title coming) — both about Paris during World War 2 when the city was occupied by the Nazis. The era lends itself to intrigue, romance, spies… and danger. Who could resist? Not me.
However, I’ve fretted and moaned and had more chocolate binges than I care to admit writing these books, but they’re the most rewarding stories I’ve ever written. Stories about lost family found and connecting with your ‘roots’. I learned a lot along the way… so here are my 7 Tips for Writing Dual Timelines:
1 — keep two sets of timelines so you know where you and your heroines are in each era at all times.
Your heroine’s birthdate in the past is important and determines what “historical events’ she witnesses. In the present, your heroine’s journey may last a shorter time — a week, month; in the past, it could be years. In The Resistance Girl, we follow the heroine’s film career from the 1920s through 1950. The modern heroine’s journey last for several days.
2 — present day in your story doesn’t have to mean today. Make it work for you.
My latest novel takes place in 2003 and 1940-1945. Why? Because I wanted my historical heroine to be alive when she meets the present day heroine. She’s 80 years old and at the top of her game, but the war years still haunt her. Also, she loves flying on the Concorde and the last trip of the airship was in 2003.
3 — create a compelling opening in whichever timeline works best. No hard fast rule you have to begin in the past.
In my new Paris novel, I begin in 2003 because I wanted to set up the 80-year-old diva’s reluctance to talk about the war years because of her personal pain. My modern heroine/reporter convinces her to ‘let it go’ and we’re off and running…
4 — decide before you begin plotting (or if you’re a pantster — I do both) if your two heroines meet at some point; or, if we know the historical heroine meets her fate and we never see her in the present.
I did both — in The Resistance Girl, the modern heroine discovers she had a famous grandmother in France during the war — a film star — she never knew existed. But in my new novel, the two heroines meet in the first chapter in 2003.
5 — know your history and research your era like crazy; your heroine in the past is fictional, but make her life believable! Facts count but don’t tell us, show us how your heroine survives in that era in a way that’s unique to her.
For example, the historical heroine in my upcoming book ends up in concentration camps; I gave her an unusual backstory that determined how she survived in the camps because of her background and talents, but made sure it was also possible.
6 — location, location, location… make sure you know exactly what your locations look like in both eras if you’re going to visit them in both timelines.
In my upcoming book about Paris, we go to concentration camp sites in Germany and Poland in both 1944-45, 1975, and 2003. I was fortunate to find photos and films that showed what the camps looked like in 1944-45 and also circa 2003 and 1975. An amazing bit of luck which created some tear-jerking moments for my historical heroine.
7 — have fun! This is an adventure about finding your heroine’s roots — like that fabulous PBS show where the celebrity goes through the big scrapbook and meets their lost relatives with the jovial host.
Make your story heartfelt, emotional, fascinating, believable, and filled with surprises to keep your readers turning those pages like the celeb on TV!
Jina
Questions about dual timelines:
Drop me a comment!
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