1--What is the title of your latest release?
MADEMOISELLE EIFFEL
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
It’s the story of Claire Eiffel, oldest daughter of the famous architect Gustave Eiffel and the role she played in his life and success after the death of her mother when Claire was only fourteen.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
It’s the story of the birth of the Eiffel Tower—Toujours Paris! It couldn’t be set anywhere else?
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Absolutely. I would hire her to be my PR manager in a heartbeat. She was a project manager from the word go!
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Resolute, loyal, creative.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
Claire lived with her dad for the rest of his life—even after she was married. Her husband moved in with them and paid rent for the use of specific rooms in Gustave’s gargantuan house.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I try to re-read and polish as I go in small bouts, but I am all about forward momentum. If I take too long to draft a book, I tend to find more internal inconsistencies.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Real Parisian chocolat chaud!!! Preferably with homemade butter galettes.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
I split my time between my beloved recliner upstairs for drafting, my traditional desk set up with dual monitors for editing and admin work, and my mini studio for video content and interviews.
10--Who is an author you admire?
Unfair question! Basically, all of them I’ve had the pleasure to meet. Some top names that immediately come to mind are Kate Quinn, Janet Skeslien Charles, Madeline Martin, Stephanie Dray, and Heather Webb.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett was the book that made me fall in love with historical fiction.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
If memory serves, it was an email! I’d been with my agent for a few months, and we’d fielded a few rejections, and it was down to two houses. We got an email from one house with an offer and gave the other house an opportunity to bid… they chose not to, and we accepted the offer from the first house. It was a modest offer, but it was exhilarating to know that I’d see my manuscript in print in the next year and a half.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
I’m a hist fic girl at heart, but I read in a lot of genres. I love a good romance and have really enjoyed the recent trend of snarky direct-address murder mysteries in the vein of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone. I’m very much a mood reader and a huge audiobook fan.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
The Sound of Music is a perennial favorite.
15--What is your favorite season?
Fall! I know it’s a popular answer, but there is nothing that compares to the Colorado Gold seasons when the aspen leaves turn yellow and the air becomes brisk, but the first snows are still a few weeks off.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Self-care, like mani-pedis, haircuts, clothes shopping, etc. followed by a nice dinner out.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Our favorite family show is actually a YouTube/Nebula production called Jet Lag, the Game. They have several short seasons a year that involve three main contestants and sometimes a guest who engage in various travel-based challenges. Tag across Europe is a fan favorite.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
French!
19--What do you do when you have free time?
Hike, bake, knit, watch movies, read, and do my cat’s bidding
20--What can readers expect from you next?
My second contemporary novel, The Wandering Season, will be out on April 1, 2025!
From the author of The School for German Brides and A Bakery in Paris, this captivating historical novel set in nineteenth-century Paris tells the story of Claire Eiffel, a woman who played a significant role in maintaining her family’s legacy and their iconic contributions to the city of Paris.
Claire Eiffel, the beautiful, brilliant eldest daughter of the illustrious architect Gustave Eiffel, is doted upon with an education envied by many sons of the upper classes, and entirely out of the reach of most daughters. Claire’s idyllic childhood ends abruptly when, at fourteen, her mother passes away. It’s soon made clear that Gustave expects Claire to fill her mother’s place as caregiver to the younger children and as manager of their home.
As she proves her competence, Claire’s importance to her father grows. She accompanies him on his travels and becomes his confidante and private secretary. She learns her father’s architectural trade and becomes indispensable to his work. But when his bright young protégé, Adolphe Salles, takes up more of Gustave’s time, Claire resents being pushed aside.
Slowly, the animosity between Claire and Adolphe turns to friendship…and then to something more. After their marriage in 1885 preserves the Eiffel legacy, they are privileged by the biggest commission of Eiffel’s career: a great iron tower dominating the 1889 World’s Fair to demonstrate the leading role of Paris in the world of art and architecture. Now hostess to the scientific elite, such as Thomas Edison, Claire is under the watchful eye not only of her family and father’s circle, but also the world.
When Gustave Eiffel’s involvement in a disastrous endeavor to build a canal in Panama ends in his imprisonment, it is up to Claire to secure her father’s freedom but also preserve the hard-won family legacy.
Claire Eiffel’s story of love, devotion, and the frantic pursuit to preserve her family’s legacy is not only an inspired reflection of real personages and historical events, but a hymn to the iconic tower that dominates the City of Lights.
Women's Fiction Historical [William Morrow Paperbacks, On Sale: September 10, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780063329287 / eISBN: 9780063329287]
Aimie K. Runyan is a multipublished and bestselling author of historical fiction. She has been nominated for a Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer of the Year award and two Colorado Book Awards. She lives in Colorado with her wonderful husband and two (usually) adorable children.
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