What are my favorite physical activities you ask? Hmmmm. Well, I like to walk and read since I discovered I could. I don’t do it outside very often because it wouldn’t be safe. Losing myself in a story is risky, for a number of reasons.

I do enjoy losing myself in a book while circling my long, oval, dining room table. It’s easy to find myself on auto pilot, forgetting I’m still walking. That’s what you call good muscle memory keeping me on track without killing myself.

The other thing I like to do in the spring to get back in shape after an inactive winter is dig in my flower beds and clean up the debris of winter. The added bonus to restored muscle tone is the pleasure of a job well done. Everything looks so much better and it gives me joy.

It takes a deliberate effort to pay attention, remembering to move around more often.

I’ve been considering getting a device to count my steps maybe that would be motivate me to do better.

So the reason for this little conversation was the story prompt that’s been appearing lately at the top of each new post. This is my first attempt to take a stab at it. I am out of ideas and could use a little help getting the creative juices. That’s what happens by reading all the time, your mind zones out staring at words floating by.

I’m trying to finish up with my current read. The tension is getting to me and I want to be done. I did go to the beginning of the second last chapter to see if I would be ok with staying there to finish up, skipping over the rest. Nope. Had to go back to where I left off. At least I know they will make it home so I’ve gone back to where I left off.

The tension is because it’s World War Two, they are acquaintances, both Americans living in occupied France where Germany has taken over but they are not yet at war with the Americans.

He is a widow with a four year old daughter, she is a single woman, a ballerina turned bookstore owner having left the ballet to help out a friend.

Over time a friendship develops as Paul and his daughter frequent the bookshop. Inadvertently, they each become a quiet part of the resistance movement. It would mean prison or loss of life if they were ever found out.

To make a long story short, with new discoveries about each other they knew they had to be ready with an escape plan. It wouldn’t be if it was needed, it would just be a matter of when.

Pearl Harbor has been bombed, the US has entered the war and it’s time to flee occupied France to avoid interment camps. A nerve wracking feat made worse by having to split up for safety reasons. Lucie and little Josie will pass in their disguise as French mother and daughter but Paul still sounds like an American. This fact could put them and everyone around them in danger. Not acceptable.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten, at least I know they eventually made it to America, at least the ladies did.

At the moment they are still having to face armed soldiers at the many checkpoints. I will be happy when they finally board a ship bound for America.

Here is the visual for what I’m reading.

Until Leaves Fall in Paris

As the Nazis march toward Paris in 1940, American ballerina Lucie Girard buys her favorite English-language bookstore to allow the Jewish owners to escape. Lucie struggles to run Green Leaf Books due to oppressive German laws and harsh conditions, but she finds a way to aid the resistance by passing secret messages between the pages of her books.

Widower Paul Aubrey wants nothing more than to return to the States with his little girl, but the US Army convinces him to keep his factory running and obtain military information from his German customers. As the war rages on, Paul offers his own resistance by sabotaging his product and hiding British airmen in his factory. After they meet in the bookstore, Paul and Lucie are drawn to each other, but she rejects him when she discovers he sells to the Germans. And for Paul to win her trust would mean betraying his mission.

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I’m sure I have been guilty of spoilers, giving too much of the story away but hey, I doubt there are tons and tons of you waiting to read this book. Just a feeling I have, you know.

I’ve looked at the stats, I think we are safe.

Time is flying, must go. Morning comes early.

Not sure I’m awake enough to have avoided major editorial pitfalls.

No new books today but maybe tomorrow.

Happy reading.