Saturday, March 20, 2021

Ellen Crosby--The French Paradox

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  I adore novels that interweave a contemporary mystery with an historical thread, and my friend Ellen Crosby is a master (or mistress!) of the form. Her Virginia wine country mysteries have intertwined the rich heritage of Virginia with the complexities of a modern-day vineyard in fascinating ways, but in her latest novel, THE FRENCH PARADOX, I think she's outdone herself! Jackie Kennedy! Paris! "Old Mistresses" paintings! I couldn't wait to pick this one up! Here's Ellen to tell us how she put it all together.

ELLEN CROSBY:  It still surprises me to realize that THE FRENCH PARADOX is the 11th book in my Virginia wine country mystery series, mostly because I never planned to write more than one book: THE MERLOT MURDERS. Sixteen years later, I am almost finished with book #12 due out in 2022 and the series has moved to its third publisher: Severn House in London. It seems right to have come full circle and to be back in England because that’s where this series began. I had written my first book, MOSCOW NIGHTS, a standalone loosely based on my time as a foreign correspondent in the former Soviet Union, while I was living in London. My UK literary agent wanted to know what was next and had been intrigued by my tale of a day trip to a couple of Virginia vineyards on a summer holiday back in America.  In fact, she was so intrigued she thought a vineyard would be the perfect place to set a new book. When I explained that I wanted to write something with a foreign setting after living overseas for many years, she said to me, “Ellen, you live in London. Virginia is a foreign setting.”

While I have learned more than I ever expected to know over the last twenty-plus years about the fascinating business of growing grapes and making wine—and how wine and murder seem to go together like, I dunno, wine and cheese—what has really hooked me about writing this series is history. Kirkus Reviews, one of the major trade reviewers, once very kindly wrote that my series “often pairs fascinating historical mysteries with clever modern ones.” I am admittedly a history nerd and it just so happens that my adopted state of Virginia has history galore, dating all the way back to our colonial days and the Founding Fathers. As Kirkus wrote, I like the idea of taking a significant event that happened long ago and weaving it into the present-day life of Lucie Montgomery, who owns a small vineyard near the little town of Middleburg, Virginia. With, of course, a murder thrown in.

Virginia wine country

What fascinates—and occasionally frustrates—me is solving the puzzle of how to connect two unrelated events. Invariably it involves research to get the history right, but that’s fine by me because as a former journalist I’m also a research junkie. My one hard and fast rule is that the solution I come up with has to be organic and logical.  

THE FRENCH PARADOX was one of those books where figuring out that connection was more challenging than usual. I had long ago planned to write a book about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who had been coming to Middleburg to ride and foxhunt since John F. Kennedy’s presidency in the 1960s. (There is a small garden with a pavilion dedicated to her just off the main street in town). Then an artist friend who is a member of the Advisory Board of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. suggested I might consider writing about the “Old Mistresses”—female artists who were contemporaries of the Old Masters, but whose paintings were never exhibited in museums precisely because they were women. What I couldn’t figure out—my husband has lost count of how many times he has heard me moan about this with every book—was how I could combine Jackie and the Old Mistresses to come up with my plot. 


Just when I was beginning to think I’d pushed the envelope too far this time, Ann Mah, an author friend, wrote a travel article for The New York Times on Jackie’s junior year abroad in Paris in 1949. Where she studied art history. 

And just like that everything fell into place. It wasn’t hard to imagine that Lucie’s French grandfather, who had appeared in earlier books, had met Jackie seventy years ago when she came to France and maybe they fell in love and maybe he took her to all of Paris’s wonderful museums and art galleries on their dates. And maybe Jackie bought some paintings by one of the Old Mistresses in a Parisian bookstall for a few francs because in those days the artist was a complete unknown.

And now Cricket Delacroix, one of Jackie’s school friends who inherited those paintings and lives in Middleburg, is about to celebrate her 90th birthday by donating the paintings—which are now worth a fortune—to the National Museum of Women in the Arts. 

So things are going along just fine until Parker Lord, a prominent landscape designer who is designing the garden for Lucie’s upcoming backyard wedding, is found dead in her vineyard where he was inspecting some ailing vines. While Parker’s death might be related to a controversial book he wrote on climate change, it turns out he also knew Jackie long ago. 

Now Lucie is starting to wonder if Parker’s murder had something to do with Jackie and those paintings. She’s also worried that her grandfather, who is flying to Virginia for Cricket’s birthday, might be involved. And she has a few questions for him as soon as he arrives in Middleburg.

Beginning with how he managed to keep an affair with one of the most glamorous, iconic women of the twentieth century a secret for seventy years.

Because Lucie is dying of curiosity.

Who wouldn’t be?

 In 1949, during her junior year abroad in Paris, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis bought several inexpensive paintings of Marie-Antoinette by a little-known 18th century female artist. She also had a romantic relationship with Virginia vineyard owner Lucie Montgomery’s French grandfather - until recently, a well-kept secret.

Seventy years later, Cricket Delacroix, Lucie’s neighbor and Jackie’s schoolfriend, is donating the now priceless paintings to a Washington, DC museum. And Lucie’s grandfather is flying to Virginia for Cricket’s 90th birthday party, hosted by her daughter Harriet. A washed-up journalist, Harriet is rewriting a manuscript Jackie left behind about Marie-Antoinette and her portraitist. She’s also adding tell-all details about Jackie, sure to make the book a bestseller.

Then on the eve of the party a world-famous landscape designer who also knew Jackie is found dead in Lucie’s vineyard. Did someone make good on the death threats he’d received because of his controversial book on climate change? Or was his murder tied to Jackie, the paintings, and Lucie’s beloved grandfather?

 ELLEN CROSBY is the author of the Virginia wine country mystery series; her latest book, THE ANGELS’SHARE,has been longlisted in the fiction category for the 2020 Library of Virginia Literary Awards. THE FRENCH PARADOX, the next book in the series, will be released on the UK on January 29, 2021 and in the US on April 6, 2021. Her books have also been nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and the Library of Virginia People’s Choice Award; THE RIESLING RETRIBUTION won the 2009 Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Best US Wine Literature Book. Crosby has also written two mysteries featuring international photojournalist Sophie Medina and MOSCOW NIGHTS, a standalone mystery. Previously she worked as a freelance reporter for The Washington Post, Moscow correspondent for ABC Radio News, and as an economist at the U.S. Senate. Learn more at http://www.ellencrosby.com. 

 
DEBS: Oh, I know so well the frustration of trying to fit those disparate pieces together--and the elation when they click.
 
Do follow the link to Ann Mah's piece in the New York Times on Jackie Kennedy's time in Paris. It sets the stage perfectly for this story! 
 
 REDS and readers, were you fascinated by Jackie, too?


 

95 comments:

  1. Ellen, this story sounds positively mesmerizing . . . I’m looking forward to reading your book and seeing how all those disparate pieces come together . . . .

    It’s hard to imagine that anyone might be less than fascinated by Jackie . . . . she personified whatever it is that makes someone particularly fascinating . . . .

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    1. Joan, she was so elegant and eloquent. Plus she was only 29 years old when she became First Lady--that just seems so impossibly young to me!

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    2. Wasn't she pregnant in her early White House days? I seem to recall a miscarriage.

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    3. She was, Gigi. It had to be heartbreaking.

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    4. The baby was a little boy: Patrick Bouvier. He is buried at Arlington with JFK and Jackie. The Eternal Flame is still such a moving place.

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  2. ELLEN, before reading your series, I had no idea there that Virginia had a wine industry. I enjoyed THE ANGELS' SHARE and your newest book, THE FRENCH PARADOX sounds fascinating with that secret relationship between a young Jackie and Lucie's grandfather.

    I was born in the mid-1960s and live in Ontario, Canada. I was too young to be watch/be interested in the glamorous wife/widow of JFK or her life as Jackie O. I was more fascinated with Jackie's son JFK Jr.'s adult life which ended so tragically.

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    1. Thank you, Grace. Your comment about being more fascinated by JFK Jr. was especially interesting to me because I'm currently in the midst of answering a series of questions for Library Journal and one of those was, "Will Jackie always fascinate us?" I think who we admire and emulate really is a generational thing and Jackie was an icon for a certain generation. (Possibly along with Diana, though she was so much younger). What do you think?

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    2. ELLEN: Yes, I agree with you about icons being a generational thing. As I mention, the JFK and Onassis years happened before I was born/was a young child. And Jackie became reclusive after Onassis died so I really did not see her much on TV in the late 1970s/80s. But I did see JFK Jr. grow up, launch George magazine and get married to Carolyn Bessette. And then I saw the news story of him piloting the airplane that killed them both.

      Diana would have been another iconic tragic figure. I saw the wedding, and when Diana, Prince Charles and her two sons visited Canada. Of course, I remember watching the news when they showed Diana's death in the Paris car crash. And then, Diana's funeral, and the heartbreaking scene of Prince Charles, William, Harry and the Earl of Spencer walking side by side in the funeral procession.

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    3. My husband met Diana when we were living in London (he was a journalist) and he came home that night absolutely mesmerized by her. He met her in the middle of the whole messy divorce from Charles--he said she lit up when he asked about her sons and became a mom, not the Princess of Wales when she talked about them. Plus he also had to cover her funeral, which he said was so hard. I remember going down to Kensington Palace and later to Buckingham Palace and seeing the thousands and thousands of bouquets, candles, and tributes. It was so moving. Our piano tuner tuned the piano that Elton John played at the funeral at Westminster Abbey. He had to stay there and said that everyone was just sobbing.

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    4. WOW, Ellen, that's awesome that your husband met Diana in London. I am not surprised that she smiled big time when he asked her about William and Harry.

      Seeing all those tributes to Diana at Buckingham Palace must have been quite a memorable sight. It was hard enough to watch her funeral on TV from Canada.

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  3. I love the premise, Ellen, and am not sure how I have missed your books all this time!

    Jackie - of course. And also the Old Mistresses. I want to know more about them.

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    1. Edith, thanks so much. The story of the "Old Mistresses" is fascinating; so is the story of how the National Museum of Women in the Arts came to be. You can Google them both--but I also read "A Museum of Their Own" by Wilhelmina Cole Holladay, who was the founder. She got so much pushback from J. Carter Brown, who was the head of the National Gallery of Art in those days warning her that she was making a big mistake to segregate women's art and not donate the collection she'd acquired to the NGA. She told him "You had your chance." and went ahead with her plans.

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    2. So . . . J. Carter Brown didn't want to hang those "Old Misstress" paintings in the National Gallery until somebody else had them, and THEN he wanted to be inclusive? Uh-huh. And how long would they have stayed on the walls once he had them?

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    3. Gigi and Karen, I definitely recommend reading "A Museum of Their Own." I met Carter Brown at a couple of DC parties years and years ago, but didn't know anything at the time about NMWA.

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    4. Sadly, it's not easy to find, Ellen. I've found a single copy, at the library here in Cincinnati, and it's out on loan. But there are no electronic or audio versions that I could find with a quick search.

      But I will keep looking! Perhaps it's available from the Smithsonian group.

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    5. Karen, NMWA is not part of the Smithsonian so I suspect you won't find it there. But at least your library has a copy!

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    6. KAREN: I found 2 hardback copies of A Museum of Their Own at Alibris in good condition for a real low price ($6.25 CDN instead of $68 CDN). The bookseller is listed at the bottom of the page, Midtown Scholar, Harrisburg, PA.
      https://www.alibris.com/booksearch.detail?invid=16142749010&quick=42266919-3-H-4.57-DOM&keyword=A+Museum+of+Their+Own&mtype=B&qsort=&page=&page=1

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  4. What a marvelous premise. Looking forward to a great read and to learning about the Old Mistresses. How could we not know about them?

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    1. Agreed, we want to know more about the Old Mistresses. I love it that Jackie bought those prints at les Bouquinistes in Paris. I loved strolling down the banks of the Seine and browsing through them. No prints for me, but I bought some classic green Penguin paperbacks books by George Simenon (translated into English) which I still have in my library.

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    2. Kait, the Old Mistresses are still quite unknown--women artists, after all. The thing is that they actually WERE famous in their day but their work was never exhibited in any gallery so eventually no one remembered them. When Wilhelmina Holladay, who founded the National Museum of Women in the Arts, began collecting art along with her husband, she got advice to find paintings that were "relatively inexpensive" because no one was collecting them.

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    3. Also replying to Grace, there was an article in the New York Times last fall on how the Bouquinistes are really struggling during the age of Covid. (They are also a World Heritage Site). https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/world/europe/france-paris-seine-books.html

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    4. ELLEN: Thanks for the link to the NYT article. I hope les Bouquinistes survive!

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    5. Grace, I hope the Bouquinistes survive, too. And Kait, I knew it was a bit of a stretch to have Jackie find those paintings in one of those bookstalls, but I loved the Bouquinistes and couldn't resist writing about them so I took an author's prerogative and that's where she found them!

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  5. Ellen, I love the sound of this. All the mothers in my neighborhood growing up were in love with Jackie, wanted to be Jackie. And anything based on what Ann Mah writes thrills my reading heart. (And I will have news about Severn Press soon, so I will love hearing about your experience there!)

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    1. ROBERTA: Upcoming Severn House news sounds exciting, can't wait!
      I am glad that Severn House picked up/continuing to publish books by several US mystery authors that I enjoy reading.

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    2. Roberta, write me; I'll be happy to share anything with you about SH. Their books, by the way, are gorgeous since they began as a printing house for libraries. For anyone who has gotten a hardcover copy of THE FRENCH PARADOX, make sure to remove the dust jacket: the book cover is identical, a detail I love! BTW, Ann is in Hanoi; she moved there a while back when her husband accepted a post at the Embassy. PLUS, she is writing a novel about Jackie based on her NYT article. Stay tuned.

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    3. Oooh, I wondered what Ann was working on! That's really exciting!

      And THE FRENCH PARADOX is gorgeous--the dust jacket art is also on the hardcover itself.

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    4. What a wonderful post, Ellen. I am honored that my article on Jacqueline (as she called herself in Paris) inspired you and I look forward to reading your book! For those who love Jackie O, may I also recommend the novel, The Editor, by Steven Rowley, which is about a young novelist whose first book is acquired by an iconic woman :)

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    5. Ann, it's good to see you here! And I'll have to look up THE EDITOR!

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  6. My mother and her friends idolized Jackie: her clothes, her beauty, her charm (speaking French with de Gaulle during his White House visit), her televised tour of the White House.

    Sounds like a great read! My daughter has lived in DC since college and Virginia vineyards are THE place for weddings.

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    1. Margaret, you are so right about Virginia vineyards being a wedding destination. My oldest son's brother-in-law and one of his best friends from college both had vineyard weddings. It's such beautiful countryside. Also: I felt rather old when my production assistant at Severn House (who is British, of course) told me her grandparents named her mother Jacqueline because of Jackie Kennedy!!

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  7. Welcome to JRW, Ellen. Your series, set in Virginia, sounds very interesting to me. Like so many JRW blog visitors, I love historical fiction! Congratulations on your new release. It may take a while before I get to read your new one. As a reader who prefers to begin with book one, I do have some catching up to do, so The Merlot Murders is going right onto my TBR list. Thank you Debs. I have said this before, you have such interesting friends!

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    1. Judy, that is exactly my "rule" for series too. Which means I am often way behind others but I still think it makes for a richer reading experience and getting to know the characters.

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    2. Judy, my daughter and I both love Ellen's Sophie Medina books. I highly recommend those two. And I really enjoyed Moscow Nights, too.

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    3. Aww, thank you both Judy and Debs. I loved the Sophie books, too, especially because I got to set part of both stories in London where I used to live. And, Judy, you are exactly like my husband: he won't read anything out of order in a series. Me, I'm a bit promiscuous (!) but he is strict about it. So I've learned never to give him a "new" book by an author without first seeking out the backlist and buying those!

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    4. Terrific, Debs. I'll look for that series, too. My husband will read things out of order and then wonder how or when the characters got... I have read things out of order but then, if I like the book, have rushed to fill in the blanks. Judi, I much prefer to begin at the beginning! Ellen, I am excited about your books.

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    5. Thanks, Judy!! I've enjoyed writing them--I still can't believe I'm finishing up book #12. I never expected to write so many.

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  8. Yes to an interest in Jackie and yes to the French Paradox--just finished it a couple of days ago!

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    1. Thank you, Flora!! Hope you enjoyed it; my last "outing" before quarantine (though I didn't know it at the time) was to the National Museum of Women in the Arts. I was so lucky to visit NMWA and meet the director and assistant director before they closed their doors for Covid.

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  9. Definitely interested in Jackie as the epitome of glamour back then. And I'll be seeking out your books Ellen, as they are new to me. Congrats on your new book!

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    1. Thank you, Amanda! There are 11 of them, counting THE FRENCH PARADOX!

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  10. Jackie and the Kennedys were considered our "royalty" and I think they still fascinate us. looking forward to reading this book, Ellen.

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    1. Judi, I think for a certain generation they still are our royalty. Plus there is the horrible Kennedy curse, which continues to this day. Last year when Covid began, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's daughter and grandson took out a canoe on the Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis last year to chase a soccer ball. The current proved too much and they both drowned. I think part of our fascination also comes from the fact that the Kennedys are so haunted by tragedy.

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    2. Oh, that's horrible. They really do seem cursed, don't they?

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    3. It was so sad--it was a local story on our news. Her grandson was at her house (I believe) because school had been closed due to Covid, so he was playing soccer with a couple of friends when the ball went in the water.

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  11. I've loved this series since Book #1! Welcome back to Jungle Red, Ellen - and yes yes yes so fascinated by Jackie O. And what a delicious possibility that she, with her love of all things French, would have bought paintings of Marie Antoinette.

    Ellen, Why did you think paintings of Marie Antoinette would have appealed to a young Jackie?

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    1. Hey, Hallie! Good to see you. Jackie actually published a collection of letters between Marie Antoinette and her mother Maria Theresa of Austria. Plus she published a book on Paris after the liberation--which she knew first-hand from having studied in Paris in 1949. It was my good luck that Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, one of the "Old Mistresses," was Marie Antoinette's portrait painter; she also has a painting currently in the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

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  12. This sounds absolutely great! HURRAY! And it has everything! (And ooh, I LOVE that click!)

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    1. Thank you, Hank! Ann is writing a novel based on Jackie's junior year in Paris. And it seems like eons ago we were together in DC at the University Club, doesn't it? Another world!

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  13. Yes, I was fascinated by Jackie. I have enjoyed your books but am really looking forward to this one.
    Thank you for reminding me of the article by Ann Mah. I just reread it and remembered how much I loved it on first reading. I had the opportunity on a trip to Paris with my sisters and our husbands to visit the Château de Courances and was delighted to imagine Jackie there.
    My husband is a UVA grad so we have been able to spend some time in VA wineries when we go to reunions. What spectacular countryside.

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    1. Atlanta, as I mentioned to Hank, Ann is coming out with a novel on Jackie's junior year abroad in Paris. I just sent her a quick email; no idea what time it is in Hanoi, where she lives now, but she may pop by later. And thank you for the kind comments. Unfortunately Severn House underestimated how well the book was going to do; the official publication date in the US is April 6, but they've already had to go back for a 4th printing! Right now the books are hard to find, but there should be more available soon.

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    2. Still, Ellen, that's great news that the book is doing so well!!

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    3. I just found out about the 4th printing and the big backorder for books!

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    4. WOW, congratulations on the huge demand and 4th printing for THE FRENCH PARADOX, Ellen!

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    5. Thank you, Grace! I couldn't believe it when my editor wrote me!

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  14. I was a child when Jackie was in the White House, and by the time I was in my teens my fashion was hippie, so I didn't really get Jackie. But now!! The year in Paris, the art, those gorgeous clothes--I am fascinated! And I wish I could see her tour of the White House now...

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    1. Debs, Colleen Shogan, who is also a mystery author in addition to being the Senior VP of the White House Historical Association (which Jackie founded) told me that Jackie was the instigator behind turning the White House into a museum, as she thought it should be.

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    2. Jackie was truly unique, so forward thinking for such a young woman. Her influence, not only on our culture at the time, but on the preservation of national treasures, cannot be underestimated.

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    3. Jackie's tour of the White House is (where else!) on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-ZyLJvXQQo

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  15. First of all, Debs, thanks for inviting me back to Jungle Reds! I look forward to it with every book. I, too, have always been fascinated by Jackie--plus she spent a lot of time hunting and riding in Middleburg where my books are set. My mother-in-law, who was French and worked for the French Commercial Counselors Office in New York City, used to accompany Jackie when she came to New York to see the collections of the French designers when they were in town. They remained friends and correspondents for years; she always spoke of how charming and elegant Jackie was.

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    1. Hi, Ellen! Glad to see you conquered Blogger!

      I didn't realize your mother-in-law had known Jackie! What a wonderful connection. And it is so interesting to learn how that year in France shaped so much of the rest of Jackie's life. I had no idea.

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    2. Debs, it took a while to get in. I always forget that browsers can war with each other and keep people locked out! I got in when I switched from Safari to Chrome!

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  16. Ellen is trying to comment but Blogger is being difficult. Any suggestions on how to get in?

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  17. How could we not be fascinated with Jackie? She was, and continued to be, such an interesting woman, always evolving in ever more intriguing ways.

    I want to know more about the Old Mistresses! Are there more of them in museums now?

    Up until Thanksgiving one of my daughters lived in Loudon County, and she took me to several of the great vineyards and tasting rooms in the area. It's so beautiful there. Her husband was a Loudon County cop for 15 years, so he knew all the cool places to point out, all the little back roads where gorgeous old horse farms and former foxhunting areas nestled. Perfect place to set mysteries.

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    1. It sounds gorgeous, a combination of England and Napa!

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    2. Karen, how nice to hear about your link to Loudoun County! There have been a few (very few) exhibitions in art galleries around the world featuring the Old Mistresses. But if you Google the subject, you'll find out how they were ignored by the major museums for years!

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  18. I had a fling with an art history professor when I was in college, (Calm down. It wasn't my area of study, he was just a stud.) and learned about Artemisia Gentileschi, Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun, and the whole realm of female painters back in the 1970s. They still struggle to get recognition all these many years later, although one of the museums in Fort Worth is very proud of their Le Brun.

    It's much the same in classical music. There were always women writing music, but the boys got all the attention. I predict that we will discover many "unknown" geniuses in the coming decade and have lots of exciting "new" music to hear and explore from women and also composers of color. Funny what you find when you actually look for it, isn't it?

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    1. I think we need to know more about this affair, Gigi!! Sounds delicious. And you're right about classical music as well as a boys-only club. I don't think I could name a single female composer--which is upsetting as I realize it. (Going to look up some names after I write this!)

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    3. Pfft! The affair was nothing--at least nothing interesting, long-lasting, or significant--but I did learn about female artists. For composers, check out Jennifer Higdon, Julie Giroux, Fanny Mendelssohn, and Fanny Crosby. There are so many more . . .

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    1. Still on my learning curve, Debs. Moved the comment to the right place!

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  20. I have really enjoyed the Virginia wine country series. Lucie's family and well-to-do neighbors are something else! I really love the bits of history mixed in the plots. I had forgotten Jackie Kennedy was so young when she became First Lady. I think JFK was ballyhooed as being the youngest President yet. She came across as gracious and talented, spoke French, dressed beautifully, had a whisper of a voice, and somehow put up with and kept her composure with her in-laws. Will she remain an icon or fade with the years? I don't know.

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    1. Pat, there was quite an age difference between them. She was in her late 20s and he was in his early 40s, as I recall. But Jackie certainly did have her own style, didn't she? To this day I think people still refer to Jackie O sunglasses. And unfortunately she died too young, only 65.

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  21. Mrs. Kennedy became First Lady when I was in jr high, just old enough to be aware of the change in the White House. Naturally, she has been the epitome to me of elegance and style ever since. And I actually saw her once, years later, in a NY store! It is clear I must read this book. Ellen, actually I am another history nerd and write my own books that combine past and present mysteries in one place...and lots of fun research. Your series was meant for me, and I am starting immediately. :-) And Reds, thanks for the introduction.

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    1. Triss, I'm sure Ellen would love your books, too!

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    2. Thanks, Triss and thanks, Debs. I clearly need to start reading your books, Triss!

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  22. Ellen, welcome to the Jungle Reds!

    There were several women artists that I recall seeing at the museum in Boston like Mary Cassatt. I visited Virginia several times. I remember that friends and I drove by horse farms. We also visited Colonial Williamsburg.

    Reading this post about Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy reminded me of when I saw photos of her riding her horse in Virginia. I remember reading recently in a story that Jacqueline charmed DeGaulle with her French language skills. She was definitely Not an Isolationist! She brought French culture to the White House.

    She was born the same year as Anne Frank, Princess Grace of Monaco (Grace Kelly) and Audrey Hepburn.

    She became an editor at a publishing house. Your mystery sounds so interesting and I want to read that book. I am adding your book to my reading list.

    Diana

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    1. Diana, Jackie worked at Viking and Doubleday and edited some wonderful books--one of her authors later wrote a book about her years as an editor called, not surprisingly, JACKIE AS EDITOR. It's a terrific book and I highly recommend it. Jackie actually got a bit of grief about being too French (from JFK) while she was First Lady, but she was always a huge Francophile and her junior year in Paris only cemented it. And Virginia, my adopted home state, is lovely, isn't it?

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  23. Ellen, I love the way you lay out your creative process, moving the pieces around on the board and finding connections until SNAP! it all falls into place.

    Also, I can't believe it's been 14 years since THE MERLOT MURDERS were published. I remember meeting you at an event when you were touring around for your debut. It can't possibly be that we're getting older, can it?

    Oh, and as to your question about whether Jackie will remain an icon to the younger generation, my 20-year-old adores her and owns several books about her life (with loads of fabulous pictures, of course.) So her legend is safe for a few more years at least.

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    1. Julia, actually it has been 16 years but we're NOT getting any older. Do you remember the infamous dinner with all the desserts with Marcia Talley when we were in Oakmont? Those were great days! And I think that's when we met. I LOVE your Clare Fergusson series, got your last one from Barbara at Poisoned Pen so it's signed! :)

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  24. Hey, everyone: Debs told me to remind you guys (I keep forgetting to do this) that I'll be on a virtual book event tonight with Colleen Shogan, a fellow mystery author and Senior Vice President of the White House Historical Association, which was founded by Jackie Kennedy. We had a great time talking together at One More Page (Colleen is a terrific interviewer, plus her job is so fascinating as was her previous job as a senior executive at the Library of Congress). We'll be at WINCHESTER BOOK GALLERY at 6pm tonight. Please stop by! https://www.winchesterbookgallery.com/event/virtual-author-event-ellen-crosby-french-paradox

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    1. Oh, fun, Ellen, that sounds terrific! I'll do my best to make it!

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    2. Thank you!! Colleen has a fascinating background and she is a terrific interviewer, plus she's a mystery author in her own right. We were together the other night at One More Page for the book launch and afterwards Eileen McGervey who owns OMP said it was the first virtual event she did where not a single person left during the entire discussion. So we were pretty chuffed! :)

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    3. Thanks so much Ellen. I look forward to chatting with you again about wine, mysteries, and first ladies tonight with the Winchester Book Gallery.

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  25. Congratulations on your release, Ellen. I adore your series and am so thrilled to have a new one! I'm with Julia - I believe Jackie will always be an icon - and I love your inside information that Jackie was as she appeared to be - charming and elegant!

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    1. Thanks, Jenn, for your lovely comment! I'm with you and Julia about Jackie being an icon. I mentioned in the book that someone came across her handwritten note for the wardrobe person who was accompanying her to Dallas with her list of what to take on that trip. Of course she didn't wear any of it after that day and I think none of us will forget her bloodstained pink Chanel suit and the pillbox hat.

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    2. Oh, ugh. Being a Dallasite, that day is certainly engrained in my memory.

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    3. I remember driving by the Book Depository Building at Dealey Plaza when Bouchercon--the last in person B'con--was held in Dallas. So many decades later, it was definitely engrained in my memory.

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  26. SO excited to learn there’s a new addition to the Virginia Wine Country series, and this sounds particularly fascinating. I love the mix of winemaking facts, history, characters and the mysteries...this is yet ANOTHER reason to be happy for 2021!

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