Sleeping With Paris
About the book (City of Love, Book 1)
Charlotte Summers is a sassy, young French teacher two days away from moving to Paris. Love of her life by her side, for those romantic kisses walking along the Seine? Check. Dream of studying at the prestigious Sorbonne University? Admission granted. But when she discovers her fiancé’s online dating profile and has a little chat with the busty red-head he’s been sleeping with on the side, she gives up on committed relationships and decides to navigate Paris on her own. Flings with no strings in the City of Light—mais oui!
Determined to stop other women from finding themselves in her shoes, Charlotte creates an anonymous blog on how to date like a man in the City of Love—that is, how to jump from bed to bed without ever falling in love. But, with a slew of Parisian men beating down her door, a hot new neighbor who feeds her chocolate in bed, and an appearance by her ex-fiancé, she isn’t so sure she can keep her promise to remain commitment-free. When Charlotte agrees to write an article for a popular women’s magazine about her Parisian dating adventures—or disasters, rather—will she risk losing the one man who’s swept her off her feet and her dream job in one fell swoop?
inspiration for sleeping with paris
I was living in Paris as a 24-year-old grad student writing my Master’s thesis when I had the idea for my first book: Sleeping with Paris. I envisioned a spicy French teacher around my age, who, after a long string of cheating boyfriends, would decide to move to the City of Love, determined not to fall in love.
Like Charlotte, I had experienced boyfriends cheating on me throughout my life, and I still felt a bit jaded from it all, so writing Sleeping with Paris was a way to channel those emotions into a humorous and uplifting story. I also wanted to pour my love of Paris and Lyon into the pages of this book, and I wanted to include some of the ridiculous stories and lost-in-translation moments that had happened to me and my girlfriends while living and studying abroad in both Paris and Lyon. A British rugby team bus driving away with Charlotte and her friends after a wild night out—yes, this actually happened to my girlfriends while we were studying in Lyon. The lovely host family Charlotte has in Lyon—they are based off of the even lovelier host family I was blessed with having during my semester there. Going to see the ballet at the Opéra Garnier in Paris as Charlotte does—that was one of my most magical Paris nights while studying there.
Writing Sleeping with Paris became a way for me to revisit my favorite cities and all of my cherished France memories in my own imagination after I moved back to the States, which was such a gift. After the book was published, I learned that my readers were also thrilled to be swept away to France in the pages of my book, and that has truly been the greatest gift of all.
