Whooping cough, headdresses and heartthrobs

Coiffes or headdresses, Château de Javarzay

Whooping cough, headdresses and heartthrobs – read on to discover the link between these words, and my work at the Château de Javarzay.

 

I love learning new things or discovering new words and often find myself falling down Google research rabbit holes. What really puts a smile on my face is when I discover an unexpected link between things that interest me. You might remember my blog post about the lousy summer weather we have endured this year, where I attributed the link between the 1815 volcanic eruption in Indonesia and the subsequent career path taken by twelve-year-old Jean-François Cail, born (in 1804) in rural Chef-Boutonne, who went on to become one of France’s major industrialists. Well, it’s happened again. 

With Julia Chapman, Librairie des Halles, Niort

We recently had the opportunity to meet one of my favourite authors, Julia Chapman (or Stagg, depending on which series of her books you are reading) at a book signing in Niort. Julia and I have been online friends since 2011, when her Fogas Chronicles series was just making its way into the world. I reviewed her books, interviewed her for the blog and eagerly awaited each new book in the five-book series set in the French Pyrenees. Her writing perfectly captured the nuances of life in a rural French village, from the characters to the politics, as she brought the mountain community to life with a great eye for detail and lots of humorous moments. I was, and still am a huge fan and even had the pleasure of lunching with her, in York, in the spring of 2014. 

 

While the Fogas Chronicles took a while to find a home in the French book shops, her second series, The Dales Detectives, set in a market town in the Yorkshire dales, is a huge hit here in France. So much so, the new books have been released in French, around six months before they are released in English and the first two books have been televised – I think they love the Britishness of it. With the tenth (and final – sniff, sniff) book released this month in France, Julia and her husband Mark, set off on a publicity tour of French bookshops, that unbelievably included one in Niort, about an hour away from us. 

Julia Chapman, Librairie des Halles, Niort

In the twenty years we have lived here, we have only visited Niort in the evening a handful of times, but the chance to enjoy an evening listening to Julia was too good an opportunity to miss. We had a great time and came away with a copy of book ten, in French. My level of French is now good enough that I do read in French, slowly, but it tends to be non-fiction and on a subject that I know well. Having now read the first four chapters of Date With Destiny, or Rendez-vous Avec le Destin, I am delighted with two things. The first is how much I am able to understand and the second, how well the humour and Yorkshireness of the English versions comes across in the translation. I have had to look up a few new words, however, but this is a good thing as it increases my French vocabulary.

 

One of the words I had to look up was “coqueluche”. When simply translated it means whooping cough, but this made no sense or had any relevance to the paragraph I was reading. I dug a bit deeper to find that in French you can “avoir la coqueluche”, to have whooping cough, or you can “être la coqueluche”, to be a whooping cough – meaning to be a heartthrob or media darling. This made more sense, as the passage was describing a particularly colourful character who was a reality TV star.

Coiffes or headdresses, Château de Javarzay

However, my inquisitive mind needed to know why the word for heartthrob and whooping cough are the same in French. This is how I found myself on the Académie Française website, reading all about coiffes or headdresses, something I thought I knew pretty well thanks to the last three years working at the Château de Javarzay. Part of our museum includes the bonnets and coiffes worn by Poitou women in the late nineteenth century, as well as the social culture around why they wore them. 

Coiffe from La Rochelle (shell-shaped)

Before it was attributed to the disease, a coqueluche was the name of a headdress, the word being a mix of the words for shell (coquille) and hood (capuche). Head coverings, that kept the chill from your head, were considered an essential protection against illnesses, including whooping cough, hence the shared name. Whooping cough (the illness) is extremely contagious, spreading quickly from person to person, much like the adoration in the public eyes of the latest media darling or heartthrob. So, there you have the link between whooping cough, headdresses, heartthrobs and the Château de Javarzay – don’t you just love the nuances of the French language, I know I do.

Amazon link to The Dales Detective Series 

Amazon link to The Fogas Chronicles 

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Book review of The Paris Inheritance by Natalie Meg Evans

The Paris Inheritance by Natalie Meg Evans

The Paris Inheritance by Natalie Meg Evans 

A family heirloom, handmade in Paris. A wartime sacrifice that changed everything. And a secret kept for generations.

Paris, 1940. Clutching a delicate silver dove-shaped brooch – the last gift from her beloved Otto, with a message of love engraved in the back – Lally flees her home in Paris. With her closest friend by her side, she dodges the Nazi gunfire echoing all around the city streets. But as they become more and more desperate during the darkest days Europe has ever known, one must make a terrible sacrifice for them both to survive…

France, 2014. After her father’s death, grieving Hope starts a new life in France. All she knows of her father’s family is that they were separated in World War Two. And her only inheritance is a unique, dove-shaped brooch.

Exploring an antique market one day, Hope’s breath catches in her throat at what she finds. A wartime picture of a green-eyed girl, a silver brooch pinned to her dress, shaped like a dove in flight. Hope has only ever seen one like it before.

Certain it’s her family heirloom, Hope is desperate to find the woman in the portrait. But it soon becomes clear that some wartime secrets are dangerous to uncover…

Will Hope’s discoveries change everything she ever believed about her father? And even if she does find the truth, will it bring her healing – or tear her apart?

Fans of The Letter, The Nightingale and We Were the Lucky Ones will be utterly swept away by this heartbreaking and unforgettable tale about family secrets in World War Two and the bonds that held people together during terrible times. 

The Paris Inheritance by Natalie Meg Evans

My review

Hope’s French market find of a wartime painting brings her and Yves together to untangle the mystery of his grandmother Lally. Each new discovery, from artwork to photographs, to pages from a memoir, helps them to piece together her traumatic past. 

Lally is an English girl in Paris at the start of the Occupation, with the added complications of an exiled German boyfriend and a needy young English friend, Pauline. They must escape to free France, but seem to be thwarted at every turn, throwing the reader into an emotional story of sacrifice and survival in the harshest of circumstances. I easily became totally immersed in the pages, and as keen as Hope and Yves to discover Lally’s war story and work out how she was linked to the broach Hope’s father held so dear to him. 

The Paris Inheritance by Natalie Meg Evans

Lally was strong, determined and despite the daily challenges she faced making her arduous escape to rural France, always did what she felt was best for those she was trying to protect. Her actions inevitably led to repercussions that lasted for generations, but this is also a heartbreaking love story, where betrayal and forgiveness go hand in hand. Moving on takes bold steps, often from the new generations, but Hope and Yves now have the chance to release a village trapped in the past.

The Paris Inheritance is another fabulous read from Natalie Meg Evans, whose gift for storytelling never fails to whisk me away into the lives of her characters. If you enjoy historical fiction, I am sure you will love this book.

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Author Bio  

Natalie is a RITA nominated, USA Today best-selling author of ten historical novels: The Dress Thief, The Milliner's Secret, The Wardrobe Mistress, A Gown of Thorns, The Secret Vow and The Paris Girl (featuring sisters, Katya and Tatiana.) Two further novels are set in southern Italy: Into the Burning Dawn and The Italian Girl's Secret, both featuring young women faced with hard choices.

The Girl with the Yellow Star takes the reader to wartime Cornwall and introduces Gwenna and little Lotti, the motherless child who arrives in her care. Natalie's latest novel, The Locket, is a split timeline novel featuring Irene, a country girl living next door to a new American airbase, and her grandaughter Ruby, returning to the family farm and discovering Irene's lost past. Natalie writes page turning stories of wartime, love and challenging choices. 

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Book review of The Little Provence Book Shop by Gillian Harvey

The Little Provence Book Shop by Gillian Harvey

The Little Provence Book Shop by Gillian Harvey

Everyone’s story has some magic. You just have to turn the page to find it…

As the sun rises over the little Provence village where single mother Adeline has escaped with her little girl Lili, she breathes deeply. This is their new beginning. Here, she can forget the lies her family told her. Here, she can start her story again.

Later she opens the door to the town’s tiny bookstore, where she is to work, ready to meet the mysterious owner Monique for the first time.

She expected an ordinary bookshop. But this bookstore feels somehow different… magical. Breathing in the smell of books, she feels a jolt of something. It feels like a new chapter beginning.

As she gets to know the villagers – including the handsome Andre and friendly Michel – she starts to believe in the magic of this new start. But can a runaway like Adeline ever find what she’s looking for? Or is a happy-ever-after just another fiction?

A totally gorgeous, escapist, romantic novel – set in rural Provence – by the bestselling author of A Year at the French Farmhouse and The Bordeaux Bookclub.

The Little Provence Book Shop by Gillian Harvey 

My review

Adeline was running away, needing a change of scenery to clear her head and calm the emotions she was feeling having lost her mum and discovered a family secret. Finding herself working in a book shop, with a difference, a world away from the London life she’d left behind, was a risky move. With her daughter Lili settling into the local school, a patisserie and café on her doorstep, the sense of community in the French village of St Vianne soon began to help ease her mind. 

Mysterious, mystical Monique, owner of the most wonderful book shop, was just my sort of person, who often put a huge grin on my face as I read. Slightly eccentric, caring, and when necessary, using a bit of her own ‘magic’ to make people feel better. She fired up my spiritual side and had me delving more into the power of crystals. If you have read and enjoyed any of the books set in Miss Moonshine’s Emporium, I’m sure you will love this book too. 

The Little Provence Book Shop by Gillian Harvey

An integral part of this book is family, in all it’s wonderful and complicated forms. One of the most beautiful parts of the story for me was the relationship between Adeline and Lili. Written from the heart of a mother, it stirred lots of memories for me, from my childhood and from when Ed was little, finding his feet in a small French nursery school. It is a calm, peaceful read, despite the emotional journey for Adeline, where warmth, love and feelings of belonging swept over me.

The Little Provence Book Shop is yet another novel from Gillian Harvey that will take you away from the everyday and immerse you somewhere quite special, and I’m sure I’m not going to be the only one who wishes they could visit Adeline and Monique at this unusual book shop.

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Gillian Harvey

Author Bio  

Gillian Harvey is a freelance writer and bestselling author who lives in France. She writes escapist fiction set in France, including bestsellers A Year at the French Farmhouse and A Month in Provence.

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The Little Provence Book Shop by Gillian Harvey

Here are some of my previous reviews of Gillian’s novels that I can also recommend:

The Riviera House Swap 

The Bordeaux Book Club 

A Month in Provence 

The French Château Escape 

One French Summer 

A Year at the French Farmhouse 

Book review of The Making of Us by Debbie Howells

The Making of Us by Debbie Howells

The Making of Us by Debbie Howells

Two people are about to take off on a journey that could change their whole lives…

As the plane surges up into the clouds, Stevie finds herself clutching the hand of the stranger sitting in the seat next to her.

It is a moment that will change everything. But Ned is heading to see his dying mother, and Stevie is returning to France to escape a terrible loss in her past. Neither of them can think about that tiny flame that just flickered between them.

But then their paths keep crossing, leading them both to the same beautiful community garden in a small French village; run by a mysterious old man named Zeke – a man with many of his own secrets.

As it becomes clear that fate is going to keep bringing them together – the two of them have to ask – are they ready for a happy-ever-after? Do they even know how to find it?

As the seeds grow into plants and flowers all around them, Stevie begins to wonders if Zeke – and his garden – might just have the answers…

The Making Of Us is a heart-warming, uplifting novel about love, heartbreak, and living your truest life. Perfect for fans of Lucy Diamond, Beth Moran, and Nicholas Sparks.

The Making of Us by Debbie Howells

My review

This book is another powerfully emotional read from Debbie Howells. 

There is something particularly lovely about a book that brings me to a France I know, so with Limoges airport featuring in the opening chapters, and the characters setting off for a rural village in the Corrèze, I certainly felt at home within the pages. 

When they meet on a flight to Limoges in southwest France, Stevie and Ned are both in a difficult place. Stevie, alone and recovering from a loss, Ned, not sure where his life or career is going. I felt I bonded with them both from the beginning and couldn’t wait to see how their journeys would evolve.

Fay, alone in her second home in France, needs something different from her life, rather than being a dutiful wife at husband Hugh’s beck and call. Making the decision not to return to Surrey, but to immerse herself in a local allotment, run by the mysterious Zeke, is a decision that changes the path of her life and that of her family. Zeke was one of my favourite characters. Wise, caring, always believing in the signs nature sends him, but hiding a difficult secret.

The Making of Us by Debbie Howells

As we get to know them, and the other characters in the village, the intricacies of village life often made me smile, and I especially loved the way the character’s paths crossed, often without them realising the significance of the meeting. This book deals with illness, loss and grief sensitively and with feeling. There are family stories to piece together, new lives to carve out and a real sense of the community coming together.

Ultimately, it perfectly highlights the importance of life, living it to the best of our abilities and loving those who are important.

Zeke, Fay, Stevie and Ned, all touched my heart as I was immersed in their lives. It was great to be back in a Debbie Howells novel.

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Debbie Howells

  

Author Bio  

Debbie Howells is a Sunday Times bestseller, who is now fulfilling her dream of writing women’s fiction with Boldwood. She has previously worked as cabin crew, a flying instructor, and a wedding florist! Now living in the countryside with her partner and Bean the rescued cat, Debbie spends her time writing.

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The Making of Us by Debbie Howells

You can read my reviews of some of Debbie’s previous novels here:

The Girl I Used to Be 

The Life You Left Behind 

Book review of One Winter at the French Chalet by Mandy Baggot

One Winter at the French Chalet by Mandy Baggot

One Winter at the French Chalet by Mandy Baggot

Things aren’t going well for travel writer Orla Bradbee.

With Christmas fast approaching, her boss is insisting Orla must travel to a rural village in France to interview a man who doesn’t speak. But with trouble at home – her teenage sister Erin is in a ‘situationship’ with a man online – Orla’s only plan is to take Erin with her.

Get the interview done, find out more about this online Romeo and still be back in time for Christmas dinner. Easy, right?

Saint-Chambéry is a picturesque French village nestled in the snow-capped mountains, but Jacques Barbier – gorgeous and brooding, yet a man of few words – makes it clear that Orla is wasting her time here.

Orla can’t deny that Jacques intrigues and infuriates her, but what is the mysterious Frenchman hiding exactly? And can she get close enough to uncover his secrets without risking her own heart?

Escape to the beautiful French Alps with Mandy Baggot for a romantic, heartwarming story to get you through the cold winter months! 

One Winter at the French Chalet by Mandy Baggot

My review

A last-minute assignment couldn’t have come at a worse time for Orla. As she uncovered one family issue after another, the last thing she wanted was to be sent on a wild goose-chase to the French mountains. However, the longer she was there, breathing in the crisp mountain air, the clearer she began to see things about her life. 

Jacques was an enigma from the beginning and getting to the bottom of his backstory kept me turning the pages, even when I should have been doing other things. For someone who was always 100% in control of himself and his surroundings, being thrown together with Orla in the run up to Christmas rocked his world in more ways than one. Meeting in such an unusual way, proved to be a timely reminder for both Jacques and Orla, how routine their lives had become and how this had led them to lose their spark for life.

One Winter at the French Chalet by Mandy Baggot

I instantly felt at home in the Alpine village of Saint-Chambéry, its quirky community felt rather familiar having lived in a rural French village for over twenty years. The characters were a great mix of interfering, yet caring and always proud of their traditions. Life here brought plenty of smiles to my face, especially the antics of those who have the community’s best interests at heart. Delphine in particular is someone I will remember fondly for her stubbornness and the delicious drinks served from her café. 

I also loved the teenagers, Erin, Tommy and Burim. Their take on life and the issues and emotions going on around them was insightful, their astuteness was something else and despite the serious nature of some of the topics, I couldn’t help but smile at them and the way they trumped their older siblings so effortlessly. 

This book was a real heartwarming read. Everyone learned something about themselves and those around them, and when things got serious the community came together to help and support each other. Add in a bit of Alpine magic to add sparkle to the dark days and you have a book as comforting as a hot chocolate after a frosty morning walk. 

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Mandy Baggot

Author Bio  

Mandy Baggot is a bestselling romance writer who loves giving readers that happy-ever-after. From sunshine romantic comedies set in Greece, to cosy curl-up winter reads, she's bringing gorgeous heroes and strong heroines readers can relate to. Mandy splits her time between Salisbury, Wiltshire and Corfu, Greece and has a passion for books, food, racehorses and all things Greek!

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One Winter at the French Chalet by Mandy Baggot

Book review of You had me at Château by Portia MacIntosh

You had me at Château by Portia MacIntosh

You had me at Château by Portia MacIntosh

Romantic comedy writer Amber Page is stuck in a rut.

After her editor tells her she needs to "up the spice" in her books (literally Amber's worst nightmare...), she is at a crossroads of what to do with her career.

When the opportunity arises to go on a writer's retreat at an exclusive château in the beautiful French Alps, Amber reluctantly agrees, hoping a change of scenery will help with inspiration.

While she tries and fails to spice up her writing - with the unhelpful guidance of the eccentric romance writers at the château - she meets two leading men who cause her own real-life romantic comedy to unfold...

A laugh-out-loud love triangle, forced proximity romantic comedy from million-copy bestseller Portia MacIntosh.

You had me at Château by Portia MacIntosh

My review

I bonded with Amber from the beginning of this book. Her life seemed to be one disaster after another, starting with her parents announcing a pre-divorce, a disastrous meeting with her editor - who she isn’t seeing eye to eye with, and the simmering stress of her writing not going anywhere and her deadline fast approaching. What should have been the opportunity of a lifetime, to join her respected contemporaries at a writing retreat in the French Alps, revealed things aren’t always how you imagine them to be, especially when they were reluctant to let her into their established friendship circle.

Luckily, as she stumbles from one nightmare situation to another, there are lots of laughs to diffuse the tension, and she has her brother Tom to sound out on about their parents.  Then there is the resort she is sent to, which is a picture-perfect Christmas wonderland, with snowy scenes outside, crackling log fires inside and delicious food at every mealtime. Add into the mix an unlikely friendship with famous influencer Caleb, who she had met in the most hilarious of situations, and the strange world she finds herself transported to, doesn’t seem so bad after all.

You had me at Château by Portia MacIntosh

I loved this book, devouring it in a matter of hours, but it was the humour that was the icing on the cake for me. I’m not always convinced by book blurb that claims ‘laugh out loud’ but I can’t think of a better way to describe the snorting and chuckling this book caused me. Do read this book, but it’s probably better not to read it in quiet public spaces.

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Portia MacIntosh

Author Bio  

Portia MacIntosh is the bestselling author of over 20 romantic comedy novels. From disastrous dates to destination weddings, Portia’s romcoms are the perfect way to escape from day to day life, visiting sunny beaches in the summer and snowy villages at Christmas time. Whether it’s southern Italy or the Yorkshire coast, Portia’s stories are the holiday you’re craving, conveniently packed in between the pages.

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You had me at Château by Portia MacIntosh

 

La vie est Belle

A bike ride along the river Belle, Deux-Sèvres

La Vie est Belle

 

September, how could you, my birth month, have been so disappointing weatherwise this year? I have vivid memories of September 2004, our first full month in France, where temperatures regularly topped 30º, breakfasts, lunches and dinners were eaten outside, and it seemed summers in France would go on forever.

Looking back on twenty years of photos, sunny days, hot bike rides, touristy days out under blue skies, and sultry vistas of our orchard looking crisp and dry at the end of the season are far more common than the low-hung grey skies, vivid greens of soggy water-logged land and the stormy days you have showered on us this year.

Had we been blessed with a summer of endless sunny days a moist September might have come as a welcome relief. As it was, summer had hardly seemed to get going as August drew to a close, and I was eagerly anticipating a September where foggy mornings gave way to hot afternoons, where despite the shortening of the days, evenings were still warm enough to be outdoor events. The disappointment of a September that has been so far from my expectations has been hard to accept.

Terra Aventura parcours, Exireuil, Deux-Sèvres

As October arrives, so does the ominous date of the 14^th, marking exactly one year since the weather turned, becoming wet and unsettled following a gorgeous six-week period of late summer heat. This year, I think I’d be hard pushed to count six decent, hot days in the last six weeks, but I do know we have made the most of them, often following the routes and answering the questions on the Terra Aventura geocaching app. This has seen us clambering over boulders in the river gorge, as we explored les puits d’enfer (hell’s wells) in Exireuil, alongside the military town of Saint-Maixent-l’Ecole in the Deux-Sèvres, as well as discovering hidden gems in Civray and Charroux in the Vienne.

A September sunset ride

The Bromptons continue to be our faithful companions, whether to and from work, enjoying rarely glimpsed sunsets after work, or the glowing autumnal colours of Chef-Boutonne on market day. We also discovered the Belle valley, less than thirty kilometres from home, where lavoirs, lost lanes and fairy bridges hidden in the trees reminded us that la vie est belle, life is beautiful (whatever the weather).

Sunshine in Charmé, Charente

I have yet to cycle my traditional 100km in a day birthday bike ride, something I have been doing since September 2015, although we did manage a fabulous 93km on the 20^th September. Our route took us through the Charente vineyards ripe with fruit, past Romanesque churches, lavoirs and fields of sunflowers with drooping seed heads, awaiting harvest. In Mansle, on the banks of the Charente River, we enjoyed a coup de soleil from a local patisserie. This new to us delight had a base of an apricot clafoutis with a lightly whipped topping of crème patisserie and Chantilly cream and was a real burst of sunshine in our mouths. Sadly, with storm clouds and thunder rolling in around us, we didn’t risk adding on the required seven kilometres to hit the 100. Ten days later and it seems the stormy showers and high winds, although interspersed with sunny spells, are still with us. I’ve had enough. Like the lizards I watch soaking up the heat on the steps of the château, I need to recharge my solar panels before winter arrives.

I can only hope that October gives us some respite from the cold and damp before winter truly sets in.