I've spent a lot of time on the French Riviera, starting when I was chosen for a special writers' residency, and I returned again and again, often as a scriptwriter attending various film festivals and television conferences. It gave me time to immerse myself in the history, culture and cuisine of the South of France.
I simply fell in love with the Cote d'Azur, and I got to know the fine people who ran a Grand Hotel which became what they called my home away from home. I explored the famous Riviera landmarks and the not-so-known little villages, as well as the enticing food markets and local restaurants. Then I started digging into the history of the Cannes Film Festival, and, lo and behold, I stumbled over a nugget of history that was "hiding in plain sight" which inspired me to write my novel, The Girl from the Grand Hotel.
I learned that, while most people assume that the very first Festival de Cannes was the 1946 one, actually, the whole thing began in 1939. That summer, boatloads of big-name Hollywood stars arrived for the pre-opening festivities, and they ensconced themselves in the very best hotels, making the spectacular Cote d'Azur even more sensational. The festival's opening night was September 1, 1939 -which just happened to be the infamous date that Hitler launched the second World War! So everybody scurried home, and the famed first Cannes Film Festival was cancelled.
My imagination was all fired up by now, and as I began writing The Girl from the Grand Hotel I envisioned an American girl just out of college named Annabel, who takes a summer job with her French uncle, the manager of a Grand Hotel just like the real one that I love. My heroine must contend with volatile Hollywood guests, including a mysterious screenwriter, a handsome leading man . . . and, Nazi spies! I had great fun writing about all the 1930s movie stars who pop up in the novel, and having Annabel try to figure out who-was-who hiding behind those fashionable sunglasses.
For my research I also went high up into the Riviera's mountains to find a little secret village that became the setting for a romantic scene in The Girl from the Grand Hotel. Nearby was a scary-looking military fort that was part of the Maginot Line, which was supposed to be France's first line of defense against invading armies. That fort also figures in a pivotal scene of my novel.
And now that I've gotten film offers, we're all having a great debate about which actors should play the lead roles. Several people have said that Ryan Gosling should take the role of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and I've always thought that Scott is the real hero of The Girl from the Grand Hotel. But others say Gosling should play the part of Jack Cabot, the sexy matinee idol that my heroine falls in love with. But Jack is having an affair with a glamorous Garbo-like actress named Téa Marlo. Some say that Margot Robbie should definitely play the sensuous Téa, but others say maybe it should be Taylor Swift! And who should play Annabel Faucon, the very girl from the Grand Hotel? Should it be, as some suggested, Emma Stone?
I'm open to casting suggestions, once you've read The Girl from the Grand Hotel.
THE GIRL FROM THE GRAND HOTEL by Camille Aubray
The #1 bestselling author of Cooking for Picasso and The Godmothers returns with The Girl from the Grand Hotel, a dazzling historical novel that brings readers into the glamorous world of the first (and doomed) Cannes Film Festival and the deadly atmosphere of Europe on the brink of war.
Summer, 1939. The glittering Cote d’Azur is having a particularly brilliant season, as the world’s wealthiest vacationers collide with Hollywood’s illustrious movie stars for the first-ever film festival on the French Riviera.
Into this hothouse playground comes an American named Annabel Faucon. Having left a dead-end job and a broken heart back in New York, she’s escaped to a summer stint at the fabulous Grand Hotel, where her uncle is the manager. But when a major movie studio brings its flock of stars to stay at the hotel, Annabel is handpicked to “keep an eye on” two of the mysterious arrivals: a screenwriter who’s been “in his cups” and a renegade actor who keeps luring the studio’s female star into his independent productions.
The arrival of Nazi guests only intensifies the situation. Suddenly everyone is watching everybody else during this feverish last summer before the outbreak of World War II. Faced with international spies who will stop at nothing to get what they want, Annabel finds herself embroiled in murder, intrigue, and a race against the clock to disrupt a secret Nazi communications system.
Inspired by true events and the histories of three great hotels on the Cote d’Azur—with appearances by such real-life luminaries as Marlene Dietrich, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Cagney, and Mae West—The Girl from the Grand Hotel is a brilliant page-turner that is not to be missed.
Women's Fiction Historical [Blackstone Publishing, On Sale: April 30, 2024, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9798212417235 / eISBN: 9798212417235]
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About Camille Aubray
Camille Aubray is an Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship winner. A writer-in-residence at the Karolyi Foundation in the South of France, she was a finalist for the Pushcart Press Editors’ Book Award and the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. She studied writing at the University of London with David Hare, Tom Stoppard, and Fay Weldon; and with her mentor Margaret Atwood at the Humber College School of Creative Writing Workshop in Toronto. Aubray has been a staff writer for the daytime dramas One Life to Live and Capitol, has taught writing at New York University, and has written and produced for ABC News, PBS, and A&E. The author divides her time between Connecticut and the South of France.
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