Kristen Gordon Chaudière was born in Germany and raised in Northern California, where she escaped to the redwoods and the beach whenever she could—which wasn’t often, because most of her childhood was spent on a soccer field. The years of shinguard tans, weekend tournaments, and giant calf muscles—deeply incompatible with 2000s-era skinny jeans—eventually paid off when she went on to play Division I soccer at the University of San Francisco.

She later traded soccer fields for museums, holding positions at the National Gallery in London, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the Musée du Louvre in Paris. When she wasn’t surrounded by art, she could usually be found surfing, eating, biking, dancing, traveling, or finding any excuse to be with friends.

These days, Kristen lives and works at Château Pesquié, her family’s wine estate in the Provençal village of Mormoiron, with her husband and their two children. Life now involves significantly more wine, significantly less surfing, a lot more writing, and an ongoing love affair with both California and Provence. She also regularly attempts to convince her American friends that living on a vineyard is, in fact, still work.

She shares glimpses of life in Provence, wine, travel, and the beautiful chaos of raising a family in the South of France on social media.

The Paris Proposal is her debut novel, inspired in part by her own story—although, for the sake of everyone involved, not all of it.