The main theme that runs through all of my Paris books is the American girl who is living a life that doesn’t fit her any longer, and through her journey to France, she will find the courage to shed the old and embrace the new. France has always been that place for me—a place of transformation, a place where I can live from my heart and be myself. In my novella, A Paris Dream, our main character Olivia Banks has been ignoring her heart for a long time and living a life that no longer serves her. It takes the loss of her family for her to finally realize that she needs to make a change. She sets off to spend just one day in the City of Light, and as we know, just one day in Paris can change everything.

There are a few magical scenes in this short story that were inspired by actual events in my travels to Paris. The scene where Olivia sees a rainbow leading to la Tour Eiffel, right after she has eaten an orgasmic pain au chocolat—this actually happened. I was back in Paris a few years after I’d finished my Master’s degree there, and I was visiting my professors at NYU in Paris in the 16th arrondissement. I had a lovely time reconnecting with them, and then I stopped at my favorite boulangerie nearby to get what I considered to be the best pain au chocolat in the city. I walked over to Trocadéro and was in absolute heaven eating the pain au chocolat in the rain while crossing the Seine, when suddenly, a rainbow appeared and ran right into la Tour Eiffel. It was one of my most magical Paris moments, and I loved giving it to Olivia in the story.

Later in the story, when Olivia is dancing with a Frenchman in the Tuileries Gardens—this one actually happened to me too, although in a different context. I was on one of my annual Paris trips and I was alone, strolling through the Tuileries. While walking, I accidentally bumped into a cute French guy—yes, it truly was an accident—and we started talking. We ended up walking through the gardens together and somehow we got onto the topic of how we both love to dance. It was the middle of the day and he held out his hand and asked me to dance with him in the Tuileries. There were tourists everywhere, but I thought, when else is this going to happen? So I said yes, and I danced with this random guy in the middle of the gardens! Afterward, we left the gardens and parted ways without exchanging contact info, and somehow that felt perfectly right. It was a magical Paris moment that I will never forget, and I can’t help but wonder if it happened just so I could write about it one day…