The French Bed Is Now Published..!

Over the past decade or more I’ve done quite a bit of writing; independently publishing my first book, The Wines of the Languedoc-Roussillon as well as blogging and writing articles about wine. During that time I was in the thick of it, running my wine tour business Vin en Vacances and could only find time to write my novel during the quiet winter months. I retired last October and by January I had managed to finish the novel and sent it off to my editor.

Here’s what it’s about:

On her birthday Lizzy’s married lover fails to appear. Her eyes fix on the bed he’d given her, she realises the eight-year affair was based purely on sex. Consumed with anger she has a sudden urge to destroy it. Later she replaces the bed with an old French one that brings strangely intense dreams set in Paris in the 1920s.

She sees a couple fall madly in love and over the course of a week witnesses the murder of the man, the death of the woman and the birth of her baby. Were these dreams or visions? Convinced these people existed she heads to Paris to trace them but soon realises the search is hopeless. The hunt almost gets shelved, but one clue remains—a postcard of a walled city —could it be Carcassonne?

Unexpectedly she receives a commission to write the memoir of Sabina, an American who lived in Paris during the Second World War. She heads to the south of France to follow the final clue and also write the memoir. There she uncovers the truth hidden beneath layers of history and memory — piecing together not only a long-buried mystery, but the key to her own future.

I decided to independently publish the novel so over the past few months I have been learning as much as I can about doing that and about how to market it and one of the things I discovered is the importance of having a newsletter. Now as well as writing my Substack journals I have launched a Readers Newsletter called Pip Post.

Why that name? Because I’ve independently published The French Bed with the help of professionals and because I needed a name for my publishing company, I jumbled up those words and came up with Professional Independent Publisher or PIP for short.

The first Pip Post went out at the end of August, a week ahead of the book launch in order for that special group of Pip Post readers to get the news first. I aim to continue to tell Pip Post followers first whenever I have news of special events, freebies, new book launches etc., so if you’d like to join the special list of readers you can subscribe here.

So at last The French Bed is published and available from Amazon UK, France and USA, or if you’d like a signed copy sent to you from me please drop an email to wendy@wendygedney.com