A spokesman said 14 members of the military had been arrested. The West African country’s president, who was not seen for hours, appeared on television Sunday night and said the coup plot would “not go unpunished.”

Ms. Perry and Mr. Trudeau, the former prime minister of Canada, posed together in photos and videos on Instagram, making them “Instagram official.”

In her 40s, the self-described New Jersey housewife started building a women’s fiction empire, churning out dozens of popular books.