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Fiction

Valérie (or, Red Velvet Nothing)

A contemporary love story in Paris, by Zoe Marie Bel. This special edition also features three poems written in Paris, as well as an author essay about the intentions in the novel.

  • Form: Novel (with a poetry and essay supplement)
  • Specification: Paperback, 164 pages
  • Published: December 1st 2024
  • Purchase from: Wherever books are sold (featured bookstores listed below).
  • ISBN: 978-1-3999-9748-5
  • RRP: US $10.99 · GB £8.99 · EUR €9.99
  • Website: RedVelvetNothing.com (including Reviews)

*Bookstore list will continually grow throughout 2025

The Blurb

A love story about daring through differences.

Valérie is a destitute poet who couch-surfs around Paris, rejecting adult responsibilities and safety to focus on her art. Céleste is an in-demand architect who loves having money (and having those who have it too). Clearly these are two women who should not fall in love. When it becomes obvious that it's far too late for that, they must decide if they have what it takes to join their worlds without disaster.

This special edition of Zoe Marie Bel's exuberant love story also features three poems written in Paris and an author essay about the novella.

A Few Words With The Author, Zoe Marie Bel

Above: Zoe Marie Bel, author of 'Valérie'. Photo by Jaimie Kourt.

  • You can't swing a kitten these days without hitting a love story. Why write another one?
  • Don't be swinging kittens, y'all. It's really bad for the furniture. But that's a good point about love stories. I'm not a huge fan of them myself, but I understand why we want them around, and always have throughout the ages. Nothing captures our most childlike and fragile hopes (and fears) quite like a love story. Because I can't take a love story neat - I need it diluted with dark humor or just straight-up darkness - 'Valérie' cannot reasonably be tagged a 'romantic comedy' or a 'fairy tale romance'. But it is ultimately a story of joy. And joy was the most important thing to me about this particular work, as, for the main part of human history, joy is strikingly absent in love stories between women.
  • Could you explain that? I'm not too familiar with love stories between women...
  • "Familiarity" isn't really possible because there aren't many stories of this kind in the first place. It's a bit like being "familiar" with Bigfoot or a super blood moon: impressionistic at best. I've had the incredible good fortune of reading a great swath of English literature (and some French), both in my education and in my adult life since. When you have a broad view of something, what is missing stands out more. Female experience in general is grossly underepresented in literature. As for women who love women – something men cannot write about from direct experience, only from their imaginations and, perhaps, from their biases – when you can find such women in literature at all, their fates are typically bleak.
  • 'Too many dead lesbians'? Didn't I see that on a slogan tee someplace once?
  • Maybe the name of an alt-rock band? Or a cocktail in West Hollywood. Unfortunately, it's true. Historically, when they appear in literature at all, women who love women (I'm going to use this all-encompassing language rather than any particular noun or adjective) tend not to fare well. Absolutely, some of them die. Often this is by their own hand, compelled by the "toxicity" of their own transgression – the implication being that their feelings, like madness or heinous sin, simply cannot be lived with. (Same-sex attraction has, of course, been classified as madness and/or heinous sin for much of the past.) More than that, women who love women in literature are unremittingly miserable. I mean, a prominent work in this space is straight-up called 'The Well Of Loneliness'. Ffs! I don't want little girls who are same-sex attracted to grow up imagining their future in that way. Loving women is joyful, empowering, and life-affirming. I'm so over that reality not being reflected in literature.
  • With so few precedents in this space, who were your influences?
  • Well, hold up a minute. I don't want to nominate myself as some kind of joy-flag Neil Armstrong. In literature, Patricia Highsmith already took a giant leap for women who love women with her 1952 novel 'The Price Of Salt' (since filmed as 'Carol'), which, after trudging through the required misery, dared to have a happy ending. And in contemporary film and TV, the idea of women loving each other happily is becoming as well-established (and chatroom-celebrated) as straight men in chaps and high heels throwing shapes on dancing shows.
  • Are the chaps progress, though? Okay, you're no Armstrong. What were your inspirations as you wrote the novella?
  • 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' exemplified to me the vantage point and tone I wanted to take in 'Valérie'. Like Capote's novel, my story is essentially an exuberant love letter from one character to the other, and not a two-hander. But I was very conscious of the risk of objectification and the one-sided reality that accompanies that. In fact, an overarching concern in the six distinct drafts of the novella I wrote was to find ways to fold in Valérie's reality despite Céleste's exclusive perspective. (This is particularly important because Cél's fierce repression of her feelings makes her a somewhat unreliable narrator.)
  • This is a story between two French women, set in Paris. But you are not French, and the story is written in English. What's the thinking there?
  • I lived in Paris for three years during the pandemic, and developed fluency in written French during that time. But let me be clear: my French is exceedingly vanilla. I very much wanted 'Valérie' to be written in elevated language, to itself be a kind of prose poem – a hint of Céleste finding poetry in herself through her love for Valérie. Vanilla French just wouldn't cut it. I did consider attempting to capture the rhythms and quirks of the French language in my English, the way Hemingway does with Spanish in 'For Whom The Bell Tolls'. However, I personally find that aspect of Hemingway's novel annoying and distancing. If Hemingway can't pull it off, what are the odds that I can? In the end, I resolved simply to write the story in my natural English and to take every opportunity to be really clear on one thing: a friend of France wrote this, not a Frenchwoman.

About The Author

Zoe Marie Bel is a writer of fiction and poetry, whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Review, Australian Book Review, Short Édition, Mystery Tribune, and more. She was educated in English Literature at Oxford University, and in real talk at various bus stops and laundromats around the world, particularly those of Los Angeles. 'Valérie' is her debut novella. Follow news and read online pieces at zoemariebel.com.

Find A Bookstore

*Check back regularly: list frequently updated

'Valérie: or, Red Velvet Nothing' is available now for purchase wherever books are sold, around the globe. Below we list featured bookstores for your convenience, and to thank these stores for their support. But know that you can visit any bookstore and order in the book if it is not already stocked there. Simply quote the ISBN: 978-1-3999-9748-5.

California
— Berkeley
— Laguna Beach
— Los Angeles
— San Francisco
Texas
— Austin
— Dallas-Fort Worth
— Houston
Your state not listed?

No worries – we are continually adding locations. Check back soon.

Find A Library

*Check back regularly: list frequently updated

We are slowly rolling out 'Valérie: or, Red Velvet Nothing' to libraries around the world. In the meantime, you can ask at your local library to have the novella added to its shelves. Simply quote the ISBN: 978-1-3999-9748-5.

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