Fire cover for the French YA edition, published by Hachette Jeunesse (click to enbiggen) ———–>

Hi everyone! It’s my third country in a week and my third language adjustment. Luckily, I never managed to learn much Dutch, so my Dutch is not interfering with my mangled attempts at French the way my Italian is. Do you think the cabdriver minded when I left him with an enthusiastic, “Merci, signore!”?

I am in Paris. You know all those things everyone always says about Paris? Turns out they’re true. One thing I know for sure about Paris is that after I leave, I intend to come back. (I felt the same way about Amsterdam, btw. Though these are two very different cities. For starters, Paris is huge. But Amsterdam is just beautiful! The architecture — the tall, skinny houses along the canals — so pretty. I took a canal cruise with my lovely editor during a free moment; it was perfect.)

I have no book events in Paris. I’m here because I needed a place to park myself for Easter weekend, during which, understandably, none of my publishers wanted to schedule anything. While here, I have four tasks: (1) Rest. (2) Write. (3) See a few sights. (4) Get over this cold in time for my journey to Spain, where I will have book events.

That’s the news from here. I hope to include some sword fighting photos in my next post.