French bakeries are dangerous places. You pop in for a simple baguette and leave with a ribbon-tied box of pure temptation. Here are my seven current favourite pâtisseries in France – plus my foolproof strategy for staying (mostly) in control. Warning: photos may cause hunger pangs.

Real life just handed my novel an incredible plot twist. A skeleton discovered beneath a church floor in Maastricht may belong to the real 17th century musketeer who inspired Dumas’ hero.

I can forget a book’s plot and characters within months, but certain settings stay with me forever – the humid marshes of North Carolina, the silent vastness of space, and the wild Atlantic winds around Skellig Michael. These are the literary places that still live rent-free in my head.