Summer reading

Saint-Georges-de-Monclard, sometimes spelled Monclar, is a small commune with less than 300 inhabitants. The centre of the village has a great deal of history with the 11^th century chateau, which has been remodelled several times over the centuries, the 12th century hall, period houses where you can see old wooden balconies and stone columns on the terraces of the first floor and the chapel of the Sainte Thérèse Montclar. So far I have not found out anything about Sainte Therese, but I’ll keep trying.

The weather has hit a high note today with an outside temperature of 31 degrees. It is really too hot to do anything remotely active so we’re lurking indoors where it is a comparatively cool 24 degrees. It has been a very sunny week, and probably because of that I’ve finished two books I ordered on Kindle – Lake House by Kate Morton and The Hard Way by Lee Child. Both very good in their different ways and good purchases. When the weather is cooler we’re out and bout pruning and weeding and walking Tim, but not in this heat. He doesn’t want to go anyway – except to jump in the stream and cool off.

For some reason I veered off writing the new story and began editing The Queen’s Courier AGAIN. This really is the last time. When I get home I shall transfer it to Kindle and publish it. Then I’ll turn my attention back to The Matfen Affair.

Poolside reading

I enjoyed The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton. Like The Forgotten Garden, it had a question that kept me reading right to the end, but it was a lot of words to get through. Rather like tackling a Barbara Erskine book, when the reader needs to block out a week, possibly a fortnight, during which the housework goes to pot and nothing gets done until the last page has been devoured. Worth it, but I was very glad I was on holiday and could sit up late reading without worrying about the morning.

While I’ve been here I’ve written two chapters of The Matfen Affair (which might yet be called The Fenwick Affair by the time I get to the end) and finished a plot outline. I’m glad about the latter, as I was worried about where I was going with it next. The Gybford Affair is doing well via KENP with Amazon, so I’d like to get this one out before the end of the year.

Here in France the haymaking has not yet begun and it is the end of June! Actually, two small fields on a hillside which drains well have been cut, but the meadows on the valley bottom have not. They are probably as waterlogged as our lower field, so our walks with Tim are a tiny bit restricted. Not that he suffers, for there is plenty of space for him to enjoy without restriction. The amazing thing is that I haven’t suffered from hay fever this year – not yet! Last year I could hardly step outdoors and had to get help from a very pleasant chemist in Bergerac.

Fiction Failures

While I was in Zermatt I did a lot of reading - Kate Morton's Forgotten Garden, to be precise, and enjoyed it until I got to the very end and couldn't believe in the reason  the child was alone on the ship. I don't want to say more of the storyline, but those of you who have read it may agree with me. That mystery had been a thread throughout the whole book, and I wanted so very badly to know why it had happened.  I'm afraid the weak raison d'etre cast the entire story into doubt.
Then I read Goddard's Set in Stone. Again, a wonderfully atmospheric story about a house that twists people's minds, but then in the last few pages - a railway ticket in the post and I couldn't understand it's significance. I obviously ought to have understood - but I didn't.

 It is things like these that make me so very wary in own writing. Is the basic plot both strong and believable? Am I expressing character in the way I should? Is everything in my head clear on the page? Will readers close the book and toss it aside, saying Rubbish! because they couldn't figure out what was happening?

So now I've begun Trollope's The Other Family, and noticed something that has been annoying me for ages. It's the increasing frequency of sentences like this: "it was perfectly possible to hand-wash most stuff, not take it to the dry-cleaner's." I would rather the sentence read 'dry-cleaner.' Why add the apostrophe, which indicates the writer means the dry-cleaner's shop, if said writer cannot be bother to add the word itself?
I hope it is not the modern trend to write novels in the same sloppy, slangy way we speak. One of the things I love about reading is discovering the astonishing beauty of clear prose and I would hate to lose that for the sake of being trendy.

Zermatt - some hotels pick up guests from the Bahnhof (station) in carriages that look like the Wells Fargo stage in cowboy films. The thunder of hooves and rolling wheels as they trot down the snowy streets is exciting to watch, and then the whiff of horse as they go by -  wonderful!