September 2017 books of the month giveaway

This month,
will you have your wine
in a mystery or in a memoir?

Click on the book covers
to know more about them

Enter the giveaway here

Giveaway Tools will draw 2 winners on October 1st

Good luck!

NB: you can also get these books RIGHT NOW,
as there are a few spots still left to review them.
It works even if you don’t have a blog!
Access the sign up form by clicking on the covers.
First come first serve

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September 1, 2017

WordsAndPeace

11 Comments

Categories: Book of the Month, Cozy mystery, Crime fiction, Giveaway, Memoir, Mystery, non-fiction, Provence, Suspense, Travel Tags: Jean-Pierre Alaux, Keith Van Sickle, Noel Balen, Provence, Sauternes, wine

Jean-Pierre ALAUX and Noël BALEN on tour: Requiem in Yquem

Authors Jean-Pierre ALAUX and Noël BALEN

are back on France Book Tours!
Check here for their previous books

meet again the famous wine maker detective with this 13th volume!
NB: each volume can be read as a standalone

Jean-Pierre ALAUX and Noël BALEN

on Tour

September 11-22

with

REQUIEM-IN-YQUEM cover

Requiem in Yquem

(mystery)

Release date: September 12, 2017
at Le French Book

215 pages

ISBN: 9781943998104

Website | Goodreads

SYNOPSIS

The intricate taste of greed and remorse.
The “addictive” Winemaker Detective series returns with a French mystery set in Sauternes, home of one of the world’s finest dessert wines, Yquem, known to some as liquid gold.
In the mist-covered hills of Sauternes, where the wine is luscious and the landscape beguiling, the brutal murder of an elderly couple intrigues the wine expert Benjamin Cooker and awakens memories for his dashing assistant Virgile Lanssien. Drawn into the investigation, the two journey through the storied Sauternes countryside, where the Château d’Yquem has reigned for centuries. Will the murder go unexplained and the killer remain free? The Winemaker Detective’s discernment and incessant curiosity pushes investigators to look deeper, while Virgile rekindles memories of his days at school and questions the meaning of his life.
In another satisfying wine novel with a French flair, authors Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen give readers a perfectly intoxicating combination French wine, gourmet meals, and mystery in the gloriously described Sauternes wine region with all the scenery, scents, and sounds of France. This light, fun mystery combines amateur sleuths, food, and wine in a wonderfully French mystery novel that doubles as a travel guide.
It is a new kind read on the international mystery and crime scene: a pitch-perfect, wine-infused, French-style cozy mystery.

Made for TV

The series is being adapted to television in France,
attracting an audience of over 4 million.
The series is a huge success in France, Belgium and Switzerland.
Blood of the Vine is also available on DVD, with English subtitles.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

©David Nakache

Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen,
the authors of the Winemaker Detective series
are epicures.
Jean-Pierre Alaux is a magazine, radio and TV journalist
when he is not writing novels in southwestern France. |
He is the grandson of a winemaker
and exhibits a real passion for wine and winemaking.
For him, there is no greater common denominator than wine.
He gets a sparkle in his eye when he talks about the Winemaker Detective mystery series,
which he coauthors with Noël Balen.
Noël lives in Paris, where he shares his time between writing,
making records, and lecturing on music.
He plays bass, is a music critic,
and has authored a number of books about musicians
in addition to his prolific novel and short-story writing.

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on Indiebound
on Amazon / on Barnes & Noble

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Sally Pane studied French at State University of New York Oswego and the Sorbonne before receiving her Masters Degree in French Literature from the University of Colorado where she wrote Camus and the Americas: A Thematic Analysis of Three Works Based on His Journaux de Voyage. Her career includes more than twenty years of translating and teaching French and Italian at Berlitz and at University of Colorado Boulder. She has worked in scientific, legal and literary translation; her literary translations include Operatic Arias; Singers Edition, and Reality and the Untheorizable by Clément Rosset, along with a number of titles in the Winemaker Detective series. She also served as the interpreter for the government cabinet of Rwanda and translated for Dian Fossey’s Digit Fund. In addition to her passion for French, she has studied Italian at Colorado University, in Rome and in Siena. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband.

VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR SCHEDULE

Monday, September 11
Review + Excerpt + Giveaway at Books Are Cool

Tuesday, September 12
Spotlight + Giveaway at An Accidental Blog

Wednesday, September 13
Review by Shree

Thursday, September 14
Review by Denise

Tuesday, September 19
Review by Andrea

Wednesday, September 20
Review + Excerpt + Giveaway at Locks, Hooks and Books

Thursday, September 21
Review + Giveaway at Libri Amori Miei

Friday, September 22
Review + Giveaway at Words And Peace

You can enter the global giveaway here
or on any other book blogs participating in this tour.
Be sure to follow each participant on Twitter/Facebook,
they are listed in the entry form below.

Enter here

Visit each blogger on the tour:
tweeting about the giveaway everyday
of the Tour will give you 5 extra entries each time!
[just follow the directions on the entry-form]

Global giveaway open to all
2 winners

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July 13, 2017

WordsAndPeace

8 Comments

Categories: Cozy mystery, Detective, Mystery, Suspense, whodunit Tags: Jean-Pierre Alaux, Le French Book, Noel Balen, Sauternes, Yquem

Tainted Tokay: giveaway winner

We have a winner!

won a copy of

Tainted Tokay

the latest book in the Winemaker Detective Series,
by

Jean-Pierre ALAUX and Noël BALEN

is here!

Celebrating the success of the Cooker Guide, the Winemaker Detective Benjamin Cooker takes a cruise down the Danube with his wife and editor. Enjoying mythic Tokaji wines in Budapest, all is not what it seems. Meanwhile, Virgile must handle the business in Bordeaux, while Alexandrine is attacked.

Here is what the publisher is sharing about it:

12 Facts You Can Steal:
Bordeaux, Cork Taint, Transylvania,
Tokay and more

As readers know, the Winemaker Detective series offers an immersive experience in both French countryside and winemaking, with some gentle mystery on the side. In the most recent addition to the series—Tainted Tokay—Benjamin Cooker travels abroad to Hungary while his trusty assistant Virgile stays at home. In this one, I learned a number of fun facts, as usual. Here are twelve of them.

Some Bordeaux wine estates have cupolas—those are dome-like structures on the top of a building. These were once used to watch for thieves during the grape harvest.
In the city of Bordeaux, the cupolas served to spot the arrival of merchant ships.
The Prince of Transylvania gave King Louis XIV of France a bottle of Tokay wine from the Tokaj region in Hungary, which gave the wine
click on the “12 facts” title to read the whole article

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

©David Nakache

Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen,
wine lover and music lover respectively,
came up with the idea for the Winemaker Detective series
while sharing a meal,
with a bottle of Château Gaudou 1996,
a red wine from Cahors
with smooth tannins and a balanced nose.

Goodreads

Buy the book |