Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop

Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop
Author: Roselle Lim
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020-08-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1984803271

From the critically acclaimed author of Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune comes a new delightful novel about exploring all the magical possibilities of life in the most extraordinary city of all: Paris. Vanessa Yu never wanted to see people's fortunes—or misfortunes—in tealeaves. Ever since she can remember, Vanessa has been able to see people's fortunes at the bottom of their teacups. To avoid blurting out their fortunes, she converts to coffee, but somehow fortunes escape and find a way to complicate her life and the ones of those around her. To add to this plight, her romance life is so nonexistent that her parents enlist the services of a matchmaking expert from Shanghai. After her matchmaking appointment, Vanessa sees death for the first time. She decides that she can't truly live until she can find a way to get rid of her uncanny abilities. When her eccentric Aunt Evelyn shows up with a tempting offer to whisk her away, Vanessa says au revoir to California and bonjour to Paris. There, Vanessa learns more about herself and the root of her gifts and realizes one thing to be true: knowing one's destiny isn't a curse, but being unable to change it is.

Magical Paris: Over 100 Things to Do Across Paris

Magical Paris: Over 100 Things to Do Across Paris
Author: K. B. Oliver
Publisher: Monceau Publishing
Total Pages: 267
Release:
Genre: Travel
ISBN:

Travel is back! The 2022 Updated Edition of Magical Paris is the book that gives you what you need (and a whole lot more) instead of all that you don’t need. Discover concise and clear information and insider tips and ideas you won’t find anywhere else. Have all of Paris at your fingertips, and the big-city intimidation will fall away. Tour your way across all 20 districts of this magical city with clear guidance on what to see, how to get there, hours, and costs. Discover Paris without the stress of wading through a huge travel book. Let Paris become yours as you get around the whole city like a local. Magical Paris is the easy-to-use (and easy to carry) travel book for Paris.

Cats in Paris

Cats in Paris
Author: Won-Sun Jang
Publisher: Watson-Guptill
Total Pages: 82
Release: 2016-01-26
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 0399578277

This gorgeously illustrated adult coloring book draws readers into the secret world of cats in Paris as they explore the city's most famous (and feline-friendly) spots. Say bonjour to the cats of Paris as they slink through its fabled streets and alleyways, from Montmartre to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop and into a feline-filled land of playful imagination. Featuring intricate pen-and-ink drawings of tabbies, Persians, Siamese, and more, this evocative coloring book’s frisky kitties lie in wait for your colorful stylings.

Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop

Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop
Author: Roselle Lim
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2020-08-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1984803271

From the critically acclaimed author of Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune comes a new delightful novel about exploring all the magical possibilities of life in the most extraordinary city of all: Paris. Vanessa Yu never wanted to see people's fortunes—or misfortunes—in tealeaves. Ever since she can remember, Vanessa has been able to see people's fortunes at the bottom of their teacups. To avoid blurting out their fortunes, she converts to coffee, but somehow fortunes escape and find a way to complicate her life and the ones of those around her. To add to this plight, her romance life is so nonexistent that her parents enlist the services of a matchmaking expert from Shanghai. After her matchmaking appointment, Vanessa sees death for the first time. She decides that she can't truly live until she can find a way to get rid of her uncanny abilities. When her eccentric Aunt Evelyn shows up with a tempting offer to whisk her away, Vanessa says au revoir to California and bonjour to Paris. There, Vanessa learns more about herself and the root of her gifts and realizes one thing to be true: knowing one's destiny isn't a curse, but being unable to change it is.

Occult Paris

Occult Paris
Author: Tobias Churton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 758
Release: 2016-10-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1620555468

How fin-de-siècle Paris became the locus for the most intense revival of magical practices and doctrines since the Renaissance • Examines the remarkable lives of occult practitioners Joséphin Peladan, Papus, Stanislas de Guaïta, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, Jules Doinel, and others • Reveals how occult activity deeply influenced many well-known cultural movements, such as Symbolism, the Decadents, modern music, and the “psychedelic 60s” During Paris’s Belle Époque (1871-1914), many cultural movements and artistic styles flourished--Symbolism, Impressionism, Art Nouveau, the Decadents--all of which profoundly shaped modern culture. Inseparable from this cultural advancement was the explosion of occult activity taking place in the City of Light at the same time. Exploring the magical, artistic, and intellectual world of the Belle Époque, Tobias Churton shows how a wide variety of Theosophists, Rosicrucians, Martinists, Freemasons, Gnostics, and neo-Cathars called fin-de-siècle Paris home. He examines the precise interplay of occultists Joséphin Peladan, Papus, Stanislas de Guaïta, and founder of the modern Gnostic Church Jules Doinel, along with lesser known figures such as Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, Paul Sédir, Charles Barlet, Edmond Bailly, Albert Jounet, Abbé Lacuria, and Lady Caithness. He reveals how the work of many masters of modern culture such as composers Claude Debussy and Erik Satie, writers Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire, and painters Georges Seurat and Alphonse Osbert bear signs of immersion in the esoteric circles that were thriving in Paris at the time. The author demonstrates how the creative hermetic ferment that animated the City of Light in the decades leading up to World War I remains an enduring presence and powerful influence today. Where, he asks, would Aleister Crowley and all the magicians of today be without the Parisian source of so much creativity in this field? Conveying the living energy of Paris in this richly artistic period of history, Churton brings into full perspective the characters, personalities, and forces that made Paris a global magnet and which allowed later cultural movements, such as the “psychedelic 60s,” to rise from the ashes of post-war Europe.

A Whale in Paris

A Whale in Paris
Author: Daniel Presley
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2018-05-22
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1534419179

“Perfect for readers who love a touch of the fantastic and the impossible.” —Booklist A hopeful and heroic girl befriends a small, lost whale during World War II and together they embark on a journey to liberate France and find their families in this charming debut novel. Ever since the Germans became the unwelcome “guests” of Paris in the early days of World War II, Papa and Chantal have gone out in the evenings to fish in the Seine. Tonight Chantal is hoping for a salmon, but instead she spies something much more special: a whale! Though small (for a whale) and lost, he seems friendly. Chantal soon opens her heart to the loveable creature and names him Franklin, after the American president who must surely be sending troops to rescue her country. Yet Franklin is in danger: The Parisians are starving and would love to eat him, and the Nazis want to capture him as a gift to Hitler. In a desperate bid to liberate themselves and their city, Chantal and Franklin embark on a dangerous voyage. But can one small girl manage to return a whale to the ocean and reunite him with his parents? And will she ever see her own family again?

Unmarriageable

Unmarriageable
Author: Soniah Kamal
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2019-01-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1524799726

“This inventive retelling of Pride and Prejudice charms.”—People “A fun, page-turning romp and a thought-provoking look at the class-obsessed strata of Pakistani society.”—NPR Alys Binat has sworn never to marry—until an encounter with one Mr. Darsee at a wedding makes her reconsider. A scandal and vicious rumor concerning the Binat family have destroyed their fortune and prospects for desirable marriages, but Alys, the second and most practical of the five Binat daughters, has found happiness teaching English literature to schoolgirls. Knowing that many of her students won’t make it to graduation before dropping out to marry and have children, Alys teaches them about Jane Austen and her other literary heroes and hopes to inspire the girls to dream of more. When an invitation arrives to the biggest wedding their small town has seen in years, Mrs. Binat, certain that their luck is about to change, excitedly sets to work preparing her daughters to fish for rich, eligible bachelors. On the first night of the festivities, Alys’s lovely older sister, Jena, catches the eye of Fahad “Bungles” Bingla, the wildly successful—and single—entrepreneur. But Bungles’s friend Valentine Darsee is clearly unimpressed by the Binat family. Alys accidentally overhears his unflattering assessment of her and quickly dismisses him and his snobbish ways. As the days of lavish wedding parties unfold, the Binats wait breathlessly to see if Jena will land a proposal—and Alys begins to realize that Darsee’s brusque manner may be hiding a very different man from the one she saw at first glance. Told with wry wit and colorful prose, Unmarriageable is a charming update on Jane Austen’s beloved novel and an exhilarating exploration of love, marriage, class, and sisterhood. Praise for Unmarriageable “Delightful . . . Unmarriageable introduces readers to a rich Muslim culture. . . . [Kamal] observes family dramas with a satiric eye and treats readers to sparkling descriptions of a days-long wedding ceremony, with its high-fashion pageantry and higher social stakes.”—Star Tribune “Thoroughly charming.”—New York Post “[A] funny, sometimes romantic, often thought-provoking glimpse into Pakistani culture, one which adroitly illustrates the double standards women face when navigating sex, love, and marriage. This is a must-read for devout Austenites.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune

Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune
Author: Roselle Lim
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2019-06-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1984803255

Lush and visual, chock-full of delicious recipes, Roselle Lim’s magical debut novel is about food, heritage, and finding family in the most unexpected places. At the news of her mother’s death, Natalie Tan returns home. The two women hadn’t spoken since Natalie left in anger seven years ago, when her mother refused to support her chosen career as a chef. Natalie is shocked to discover the vibrant neighborhood of San Francisco’s Chinatown that she remembers from her childhood is fading, with businesses failing and families moving out. She’s even more surprised to learn she has inherited her grandmother’s restaurant. The neighborhood seer reads the restaurant’s fortune in the leaves: Natalie must cook three recipes from her grandmother’s cookbook to aid her struggling neighbors before the restaurant will succeed. Unfortunately, Natalie has no desire to help them try to turn things around—she resents the local shopkeepers for leaving her alone to take care of her agoraphobic mother when she was growing up. But with the support of a surprising new friend and a budding romance, Natalie starts to realize that maybe her neighbors really have been there for her all along.

Someday in Paris

Someday in Paris
Author: Olivia Lara
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 475
Release: 2020-05-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 183893314X

'A deeply moving, richly evocative story of love, loss and the power of hope' Miranda Dickinson 1954. Zara is fifteen the first time she meets Leon one wintery night in December. During a power cut in a small French museum, the two spend one short hour in the dark talking about their love for art, Monet and Paris. Neither knows what the other looks like. Both know their lives will never be the same. 1963. In Paris, Leon no longer believes he will ever find the girl he lost that night. After dreaming about him for years, Zara thinks she has already found him. When the two meet at a charity ball, they don't recognise each other – yet the way they feel is so familiar... Over the course of twenty years, Zara and Leon are destined to fall in love again and again. But will they ever find a way to be together? A magical new love story about star-crossed lovers, perfect for hopeless romantics and fans of One Day and The Notebook. Readers love Someday in Paris! 'An epic, sweeping romance about soulmates and second chances' Holly Miller 'An absolutely unforgettable love story' Mandy Baggot 'I absolutely adored this book and stayed up late at night to finish it!! I couldn't put it down. This was a truly epic love story.' Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars 'Magical, all-encompassing and timeless; an unforgettable romance.' NetGalley Reviewer, 5 stars 'Without question 5.0 Exquisite Stars!! There are not enough magical adjectives to describe the beauty of this story!! Someday in Paris moved me beyond words and to quite a few tears.' Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars 'Some books leave you a print in your heart which make them difficult to forget... Emotive, sweet and unforgettable... The most beautiful book I've read in a while!' NetGalley Reviewer, 5 stars 'This is a book for hopeless romantics, for those who dare to dream, and for those who believe in true love everlasting... I could not put it down.' Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars 'This book left me speechless. I haven't read such an amazing story in a long time.' Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars 'I absolutely loved this book ...The story kept me hanging on and reading late into the night.' Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars

Strange Revelations

Strange Revelations
Author: Lynn Wood Mollenauer
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0271029153

The Affair of the Poisons was the greatest court scandal of the seventeenth century. From 1679 to 1682 the French crown investigated more than 400 people&—including Louis XIV&’s official mistress and members of the highest-ranking circles at court&—for sensational crimes. In Strange Revelations, Lynn Mollenauer brings this bizarre story to life, exposing a criminal magical underworld thriving in the heart of the Sun King&’s capital. The macabre details of the Affair of the Poisons read like a gothic novel. In the fall of 1678, Nicolas de la Reynie, head of the Paris police, uncovered a plot to poison Louis XIV. La Reynie&’s subsequent investigation unveiled a loosely knit community of sorceresses, magicians, and renegade priests who offered for sale an array of services and products ranging from abortions to love magic to poisons known as &“inheritance powders.&” It was the inheritance powders (usually made from powdered toads steeped in arsenic) that lent the Affair of the Poisons its name. The purchasers of the powders gave the affair its notoriety, for the scandal extended into the most exalted ranks of the French court. Mollenauer adroitly uses the Affair of the Poisons to uncover the hidden forms of power that men and women of all social classes invoked to achieve their goals. While the exercise of state power during the ancien r&égime was quintessentially visible&—ritually displayed through public ceremonies&—the affair exposes the simultaneous presence of other imagined and real sources of power available to the Sun King&’s subjects: magic, poison, and the manipulation of sexual passions. Highly entertaining yet deeply researched, Strange Revelations will appeal to anyone interested in the history of court society, gender, magic, or crime in early modern Europe.