The First Woman of Champagne
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| About the Book |
Book Titles: Champagne Widows / Madame Pommery
Series: Champagne Widows Series
Author: Rebecca Rosenberg
Publication Dates: March 2022 / April 2023
Publisher: Lion Heart Publishing
Page Length: 368 pgs.
Genre: Historical Fiction
EDITORS CHOICE HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY
“A-Tour-de-Force” Publisher’s Weekly BookLife Prize
MADAME POMMERY, Creator of Brut Champagne
"A tour-de-force of historical fiction, Madame Pommery is a deeply fascinating work that blends true-to-life details with artfully crafted elements." --Publishers Weekly BookLife Prize
Madame Pommery is a story of a woman's indomitable spirit in the face of insurmountable odds. Set in Champagne, France in 1860, Madame Pommery is a forty-year-old widow and etiquette teacher whose husband has passed away. Now she must find a way to support her family. With no experience, she decides to make champagne, but no champagne makers will teach her their craft. Undeterred, Madame Pommery begins to secretly excavate champagne caves under the Reims city dump and faces numerous obstacles to achieve her dream. From the Franco-Prussian war that conscripts her son and crew to the Prussian General Frederick Franz occupying her home, Madame Pommery perseveres. She even must choose between her champagne dreams and a marriage proposal from her former lover, a Scottish Baron. Inspired by a true story, Madame Pommery is a heroic tale of a woman's strength and determination to create a champagne legacy. If you enjoyed the novel Sarah's Key, you will enjoy Madame Pommery.
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CHAMPAGNE WIDOWS, the First Woman of Champagne
EDITORS CHOICE HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY This engrossing historical novel by Rebecca Rosenberg follows Veuve Clicquot, a strong-minded woman determined to defy the Napoleon Code and become a master champagne maker. In 1800 France, twenty-year-old Barbe-Nicole inherits her great-grandfather's uncanny sense of smell and uses it to make great champagne, despite the Code prohibiting women from owning a business. When tragedy strikes and she becomes a Veuve (widow), she must grapple with a domineering partner, the complexities of making champagne, and the aftermath of six Napoleon wars. When she falls in love with her sales manager, Louis Bohne, she must choose between losing her winery to her husband to obey the Napoleon Code, or losing Louis. In the ultimate showdown, Veuve Clicquot defies Napoleon himself, risking prison and even death. If you enjoyed books like 'The Widow of the South' by Robert Hicks or 'The Paris Seamstress' by Natasha Lester, you'll love 'Veuve Clicquot'.
Buy Links:
These titles are available to read on #KindleUnlimited.
Madame Pommery: https://books2read.com/u/bW6GL1
Champagne Widows: https://books2read.com/u/3kBekW
About the author
Rebecca Rosenberg is an award-winning novelist, champagne geek, and lavender farmer. Rebecca first fell in love with methode champenoise in Sonoma Valley, California. Over decades of delicious research, she has explored the wine cellars of France, Spain, Italy, and California in search of fine champagne. When Rebecca discovered the real-life stories of the Champagne Widows of France, she knew she’d dedicate years to telling the stories of these remarkable women who made champagne the worldwide phenomenon it is today.
Rebecca is a champagne historian, tour guide, and champagne cocktail expert for Breathless Wines. Other award-winning novels include The Secret Life of Mrs. London and Gold Digger, the Remarkable Baby Doe Tabor.
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| Read An Excerpt |
Madame Pommery
Creator of Brut Champagne
A Champagne Widows Novel
PART I
1858-1862
“Never imitate anyone, including yourself.”
~Jeanne Alexandrine Pommery
En avoir gros sur lE cœur
To have a big one on the heart
Reims, Champagne, France, 1858.
If it wasn’t for the vital volume of Etiquette for Ladies weighing down my lap, I would float away with my dear Louis, who I pray is knocking at heaven’s gates by now. The waxy body before me is not my Louis, no longer smelling of lanolin from working the wool. His lips and cheeks are painted with embalmer’s rouge in a grotesque likeness of the trollops at Le Palais Alhambra brothel.
My husband was a simple man who would have preferred his untouched body encased in a plain pine box. Why did I let Reynard Wolfe convince me to embalm and inter Louis in an extravagant casket of walnut burl inlaid with brass and pewter?
Wolfe, Louis’s banker and executor, appealed to my sense of societal duty.
“Madame Pommery, as the very pillar of Reims society, you would certainly be expected to maintain Louis Pommery’s dignity as a respected businessman.”
Dignity my eye. Louis puffed up and painted like a suckling pig?
May as well have an apple stuffed in his mouth.
I’ve kept our two-year-old daughter in the nursery with her nanny, Lucille. No one should remember their parent in a box looking so unnatural. I shudder at the thought, and Madame DuBois wraps a shawl over my shoulders against the chill.
“Merci.” I pat her hand. She’s been with me every moment since I started the Saint Remi Auxiliary for the orphanage. The other aux- iliary ladies babble on about Louis—how steadfast, gentle, and loyal he was, never once mentioning his failing wool and wine business. I’ve given them all Etiquette for Ladies. Their words drift to the ceiling with the candle smoke, as my fingers examine the gift Louis gave me last year for my thirty-ninth birthday.
I’d hoped for canvas and paints, but he gave me a chate- laine.
“Everything you ever need hanging from your belt.” He’d demonstrated each item with such pride, I hid my disappointment.
“Thimble, watch, scissors, and measuring tape for your needlework, a funnel for your oils, a pencil, a pantry key, a wax letter seal, and a vial of smelling salts." Uncorking the vial, I breathe in the stinging vapors of camphor, which smell like embalming fluid.
“It’s time, Madame Pommery.” Reynard Wolfe dons a Bavarian hat from his homeland.
My son, Louis’s namesake, squeezes my hand. A flesh-and-blood image of his father with his brooding brow and broad shoulders. So grown up in his military school uniform, yet sweat beads his upper lip. Still a boy at seventeen.
As Father Pieter closes the coffin lid, I steal a last look at the man who is not really here.
“Wait.” I pluck a rose from the vase and lay it on his folded hands that feel so cold.
My son helps Narcisse Greno with his coat. My husband’s partner has aged overnight. His head quivers. Thick lenses enlarge his cloudy eyes. An ear trumpet sticks out from his breast pocket.
The rest of the pallbearers pull on fur-lined gloves and black overcoats over blacker mourning suits. Henry Vasnier, my husband’s young apprentice, wears the same suit he wears every Sunday for church. He has a fresh cut under his long sideburns and a bit of lather behind his ear. No wife yet to help him catch those things.
Reynard Wolfe positions the esteemed Mayor Werle and Doctor DuBois at the head of the coffin. I imagine it’s so the crowd outside will see these important men first in the procession.
As the widow, I am forbidden to join the procession. That bitter pill sticks in my throat. The men lift the coffin, and I jump up from my chair. The weighty Etiquette for Ladies falls on my foot with a sharp blow. Catching myself on the casket, the pallbearers buckle under my added weight.
“I want to go to the cemetery,” I say, my foot aching. “Madame Pommery, you of all people know only men walk behind the hearse wagon,” Wolfe scolds. “I will make sure Monsieur Pommery is buried properly. Your friends will keep you company.”
The Saint Remi Auxiliary ladies gape at me, shocked at my outburst. They do not expect such misbehavior from me.
I turn my head to the banker. “Please, Monsieur Wolfe, I must accompany my husband to his grave.”
“You must set a good example, Madame, or all your etiquette lessons are for naught.”
I grit my teeth. If I do not live by the rules I teach, my integrity is lost. “Get on with it then.”
The men carry the coffin outside, and Old Greno grunts under the weight. Louis takes a wider grip, trying to help.
Limping after them on my sore foot, I watch them load my husband into the shadowy hearse wagon. A forlorn moan escapes my throat, and I bite down on my thumbnail.
The auxiliary ladies surround me, simpering and sniveling. The wagon lurches off, and black-shrouded horses slip on cobblestones. Despite the snow, townspeople line the street on both sides. Women wave black lace handkerchiefs as the hearse passes. A procession of fine carriages and gigs slog through the slippery street, wheels squealing.
My nanny, Lucille, brings out my daughter, who is flushed and tearful.
“Papa? Papa? Where Papa?” Little Louise totters to me.
“I am sorry, Madame. She will not stop asking for him.” Lucille tucks dark curls into her kerchief. Even with her hair covered, the Jewess provokes the auxiliary’s glares. Her cavernous eyes, perfect oval face and aquiline nose cannot go unnoticed, yet she never flaunts her beauty.
Louise presses her red rumpled face into my breast and wails. The auxiliary ladies’ eyes bulge like moor fish, and they cover their disapproval with black silk fans.
Something snaps inside me. “Thank you for your kindness, ladies. You have been a great comfort to me.” Hugging Louise close, I wind my way through them and out to the carriage house.
“Etiquette can be tricky, Louise.” I strap her in the gig. “Inevitably, one finds oneself in a predicament where rules do not apply, or worse, they contradict each other. When that happens, one must listen to one’s heart for direction.” Snapping Beau’s reins, I turn him toward Saint Remi. I will not allow my husband to be buried without me.
© Rebecca Rosenberg
Champagne Widows Series Links:
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Amazon AU:
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Thank you so much for hosting Rebecca Rosenberg on your lovely blog today.
ReplyDeleteCathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club
as always, my pleasure
DeleteThank you Helen for sharing the exciting story of Madame Pommery, the Creator of Brut Champagne! I appreciate your support!
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