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Title details for Petite Anglaise by Catherine Sanderson - Available

Petite Anglaise

by Catherine Sanderson
ebook
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1 of 1 copy available
“When Tadpole was born, I spent a sleepless night on the maternity ward gazing intently into her inky, newborn eyes, grappling to come to terms with the indisputable fact that this was an actual person looking back at me, not just a version of Mr. Frog, or me, or both, in miniature. From the outset she seemed to know what she wanted, and I realized I could have no inkling of the paths she would choose to follow. But if I watch her life unfold carefully enough, perhaps I will see clear signposts pointing to who or what she will become. Because when I look backward, ransacking my own past for clues with the clarity that only hindsight can bring, a series of defining moments do stand out. Moments charged with significance; snapshots of myself which, if I join the dots together, lead me unswervingly to where I stand today: from French, to France, to Paris, and to Petite Anglaise.” [ed. note - excerpted from Petite Anglaise, p.4]
Catherine Sanderson has a beautiful bilingual daughter, an authentic French boyfriend, and a Paris apartment with bohemian charm. She has what she has always wanted — a life in France.
Growing up in Yorkshire amidst a traditional family, Catherine had set her sights on a different life — a life that would immerse her in an exotic language and culture. From grammar school French lessons to teaching English in Normandy and finally to a permanent job in Paris, she was determined that France would be the place she would call home.
But now that she does, things are not so idyllic. Catherine wonders just when her life in Paris turned from wine to vinegar: She’s stuck in a dead-end administrative job, her relationship with her boyfriend has settled into a dreary routine, and the birth of their daughter has not helped to reignite the dying fire of her relationship.
The remedy to her dissatisfaction arrives in the morning headlines. While scanning the news of the day, Catherine becomes intrigued by a story profiling an internet diarist. After exploring one blog after another, and in one exhilarating moment, Catherine decides to create her own online persona, her jardin secret. At that moment, she is transformed from Catherine to Petite Anglaise, her boyfriend to Mr. Frog, her daughter to Tadpole, and her life to something she could never have predicted.
What begins as a lighthearted diversion, a place to discuss the fish-out-of water challenges of ex-pat life in Paris, soon gives way to a raw forum for her to bare her most intimate secrets and impulsive desires. Thousands of readers log-on to the blog and are witness to the ever-widening gulf between Petite Anglaise and Mr. Frog. Those public revelations of her growing frustrations, which play out in each successive post, begin to surreptitiously yet irrevocably erode their relationship.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 29, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780385673211

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780385673211
      • File size: 2159 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 28, 2008
      From the moment she started French lessons at her Yorkshire grammar school, Sanderson was hooked on all things French. Soon she found herself a pen pal in Lyons whom she just had to visit, and then an exchange job or two in France after graduation. Before long, she was living full-time in Paris with the French boyfriend (aka “Mr. Frog”) who'd fathered her daughter. The office job that made her French dream possible wasn't exactly riveting, but one day, when she was roaming the Internet, she discovered the world of bloggers. She created her own, christening herself “Petite Anglaise,” and gave birth to her very own “alter ego.” At first, being Petite Anglaise gave Sanderson a vehicle for commenting on the lifestyles of the French; gradually, it became a sounding board for her domestic discontents. Not only was her blog an enormous hit, she also began to enjoy the attentions of one of Petite Anglaise's online fans. Naturally—as any romance reader could predict—she ditched Mr. Frog in favor of the online lover. Sanderson's memoir is compulsively readable, especially since she's jazzed up the basic romance formula with all the issues around blogging, like the problem of Petite Anglaise being “wittier and sexier” than she is.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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