Corine Gantz has nothing to hide, as well as a book to give away!

**Giveaway is now closed**

We tend to flock to books about widows and we don't know why. Corine Gantz, author of "Hidden in Paris," is here to tell us some of her theories, through the use of a very clever script!

Corine Gantz was born in France and spent the first twenty years of her life there. She studied Contemporary Art at the Sorbonne and worked in advertising and marketing in Paris, San Francisco and Los Angeles. She currently lives near Los Angeles with her husband and two sons. Through her popular blog Hidden in France, she uses her particular brand of humor to meditate on relationships, food, décor, and all things French. "Hidden in Paris" is her debut novel, which is about a widow who promises other people ways of starting over in Paris, even though she is not ready to do this for herself. If you want to know more about this story, you've come to the right place, as Corine is giving away THREE copies to some lucky readers in the US and Canada!

You can find Corine on Facebook and Twitter, as well as at her blog and website (where you can find the synopsis and first chapter of her book).


Widows in Literature

Him- (Lifting his face from the first chapter of my novel, "Hidden in Paris," his face registering something between bemusement and indignation.) “You killed her husband? Just like that? In the Prologue?”

Me- “Oh please, don’t tell me you were already attached.”

Him- “Well, if your main character is a representation of you, then her husband could be a representation of me. So forgive me for being unreasonably attached.”

Me- “I did not kill my main character’s husband to satisfy hidden personal resentment if that’s what you’re getting at.”

Him- “You sure were swift in disposing of that character.”

Me- (feeling like he found me on the scene of a crime bloody knife in hand, I try a diversion.) “I wasn’t the one driving his Porshe onto incoming traffic. For this he has no one to blame but himself.” (Noticing I will get nowhere with this,) “Fine. I killed him.”

Him- Isn’t it a bit of a macabre choice?

Me- I had no choice. My character’s story could not start otherwise. Beside, widows make some of the best heroines.”

Him- “Who says?”

Me- “The Collective Unconscious does. Children stories from Tom Sawyer, to Annie, to Harry Potter star orphans.”

Him- “And the connection is…?”

Me- “Widows are to women what orphans are to children. You know how characters in Disney movies have to face a dramatic loss that forces them to abandon the nest? Well women in fiction need that extra little push so that they can take that plunge into the unknown.”

Him- “I can’t see the appeal. Real life widows suffer a loss that they might not recover from easily, if ever.”

Me- “Not my fault if there is something a little sinister about the collective unconscious.”

Him- “Or your own unconscious. Divorcees and single women are alone too, and no husband has to die.”

Me- “In theory single women are empowered, divorcees are fighters, but widows are…well more tragic. They lose their protector and no blame can be attributed to them, you see. Nothing against husbands in general, but widows are almost saintly. We root for those who are both innocent and vulnerable.”

Him- “So the reason people want to read about women who have suffered a tragedy is that it makes them feel protective towards them.”

Me- “Come on, relax. Readers don’t fantasize about becoming widows anymore than writers of women’s fiction do. Widows have a universal appeal because we all have a latent terror of abandonment. Reading stories of loss and hardship and being alone in the scary world helps us rehearse deep-seated fears. Through reading fiction we get to explore the possibilities. In this instance, the possibility of adventure, of new beginning, and of course of being able to triumph over adversity despite being alone. The widow is forced to meet the world on entirely different terms, and most likely her own terms.”

Him- “In other words you dispatched the husband so that the fun could begin.”

Me- (starting to harbor murderous thoughts.) “She misses him! She misses him terribly. She mourns him!”

Him- “Famous last word.”

Me- (mumbling to myself,) “At least she does at first…”

Him- “Pardon me?”

Me- (making a show of coughing,) “Just something caught in my throat.”

Him- “I find it hard to believe that happily married women cannot be interesting characters.”

Me- “There are unspoken rules in fiction. The Hero’s Journey is the quest for the Holy Grail and for many women, the Holy Grail is love. Once it’s been found what’s left to do but put on the bathrobe and curlers and watch Oprah. So in my book it’s ‘Happily Ever Before’ rather than ‘Happily Ever After,’ and I go from there.”

Him- “Very much unlike real life, of course.”

Me- “In real life we admire people who do all kinds of gutsy things, but let face it, they are not us. In fiction we get to be the character. We follow our heroine as she is taken out of her comfort zone, which is of course a metaphor for our own comfort zone. We get to watch her scare herself and have some fun and we get to keep a clear conscience.”

Him- “I’m not sure that as much can be said about the author of said fiction.

Me- (A panicked thought: Has he read ahead? Could this really be about what happens in my story later on? The torrid sex on the dunes with someone who is definitely not her husband? I brace myself for another touchy discussion. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.)

**Note: No real life husband was harmed (or consulted) in the writing of this post.

We are thankful to Corine for exposing the reason why we like widows so much and for making us laugh while doing so. We also appreciate that she's sharing her book with our readers!

How to win "Hidden in Paris":
Please comment below with your e-mail address. (Please note:Entries without an e-mail address will NOT be counted. You can use AT and DOT to avoid spam. Or provide a link to your facebook page or blog if you can receive messages there.)

Bonus entries (can be listed all in one post):
1. Please tell us: Who is your favorite widow from a novel, movie or television show?
2. Follow this blog and post a comment saying you are a follower (if you already follow, that's fine too).
3. Post this contest on Facebook or Twitter or in your blog, and leave a comment saying where you've posted it.
4. Join Chick Lit Central on Facebook. Edit settings if you don't want to receive a lot of messages at your e-mail account. Please read our posting guidelines, as well. (If you're already a member, let us know that too.)
5. Add a friend to our Facebook group. (Tell us who you added.) Be sure to remind them to edit their settings.

US/Canada only. Giveaway ends November 27th at midnight EST.