French Lessons
A romance about a middle-aged, newly-divorced American, Barbara Waldheim, who decides to reinvent her life and seek adventures in France. She buys a historic farmhouse in a tiny hamlet. To her surprise, while restoring the house, she herself undergoes a makeover and finds love in the process— but not the handsome Frenchman she expected. The tale is chock full of entertaining tidbits about French life and customs.
Author
Roberta Samuels
Published on
03/05/2024
Vanished
An action-packed mystery, full of twists and turns, which shifts between West Africa and France and was in part inspired by current events. While dining at their favorite French bistro, Barbara and Sam witness the theft of a valuable Nigerian tribal artwork, a N’kisi Kongo statue. They play detective and their efforts, in conjunction with a parachute drop, a chase through the Sahara desert, and a Nigerian ceremony to summon the ancestral spirits, enable the secret the statue is protecting to be revealed. Vanished earned honorable mention at the 2024 Paris Book Festival.
Author
Roberta Samuels
Published on
11/15/2023
Missing
A cozy mystery based on a true story about a fabulous modern artwork which has disappeared from a medieval village church in France. American couple, Barbara and Sam, are vacationing in their charming village in Occitanie when controversy rears its head. What happened to the town’s famous Sonia Delaunay artwork? Where did it go? Who is hiding it and why? The expats investigate and learn about WWII Resistance fighters hiding from the Nazi SS Das Reich Division and modern day secrets buried in the church’s 14th century crypt, putting at risk the underpinnings of their own 15th century house.
Author
Roberta Samuels
Published on
10/18/2024
Lost
Back in Sarasota for the winter, globetrotting Barbara and Sam discover their deadbeat tenant has left behind more than a trashed house—he’s abandoned a mysterious carved stone. In the third adventure of Samuels’ art-related mystery series, the two well-intentioned American travelers unexpectedly become involved in political intrigue involving art objects—in this instance, insider art museum dealings, a terrorist financing scheme and an ICE investigation. Is an oil-rich Arab sheikh an art benefactor or predator? Is there evidence of the development of world civilization buried in the sands of the Arabian peninsula?
Author
Roberta Samuels
Published on
11/15/2025