Welcome to the Just One Year blog tour! After spending an amazing day and night together in Paris, Just One Year is Willem’s story, picking up where Allyson’s journey in Just One Day ended. In honor of the world-spanning romance, we asked author Gayle Forman to share her memories for 12 different cities, each of which is featured in either Just One Day or Just One Year (or both!). Follow along on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays throughout September as Gayle tells her story in anticipation of the October release of Just One Year!
Gayle’s Guest Post
Deauville
Deauville is the one setting in Just One Year that I don’t personally know, haven’t actually been to. When I did my research trip in Europe, I didn’t fully know Just One Year’s plot, and didn’t know there’d be a chapter here. So I had to wing it, using Google maps, and the help of all my European and American nautically inclined friends.
At one point, I needed to come up with the name of a bar in Deauville, one of those seaside dives where salty sailors would drink. I wanted to call it La sorcière de la mer, or The Sea Witch, because I thought this sounded appropriately poetic. But when I went to Twitter to fact-check, my French readers issued a loud and uniform “non!” That’s not what a French bar would be called, they said. They suggested Bar de la Marine, or Bar of The Sea, which seemed kind of literal, and not nearly as enticing as Sea Witch. I resisted. Twitter insisted.
Still, I dug my heels in. Bar de la Marine seemed so boring, and well, poetic liberties. But then I goggled bars called La sorcière de la mer throughout France and couldn’t find a one. There’s poetic license, and there’s cultural illiteracy.
I named the bar Bar de la Marine. Merci, Twitter.
Deauville Photograph: Alamy
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After spending an amazing day and night together in Paris, Just One Year is Willem’s story, picking up where Just One Day ended. His story of their year of quiet longing and near misses is a perfect counterpoint to Allyson’s own as Willem undergoes a transformative journey, questioning his path, finding love, and ultimately, redefining himself.
About Gayle Forman
Gayle Forman (www.gayleforman.com) is an award-winning, international bestselling author and journalist whose articles have appeared in numerous publications. She is the author of the companion title Just One Day, as well as New York Times bestsellers If I Stay and Where She Went, and Sisters in Sanity (HarperTeen). Follow Gayle on Twitter @gayleforman.
Follow the Just One Year blog tour to see all of Gayle’s posts!
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9/2: I Am A Reader, Not A Writer
9/6: Alice Marvels
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9/9: Yareads
9/11: The Flyleaf Review
9/13: The Young Folks
9/16: The Story Siren
9/18: Cuddlebuggery
9/20: Books With Bite
9/23: Forever Young Adult
9/25: Once Upon a Twilight
9/27: Me, My Shelf, and I
**Click here for our review of Just One Year**
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