I’m continuing my journey following the Granville-Paris Express …

… and I’m now in Briouze, a small town only 19 kilometres from Flers, my last stop, in the département of Orne (61). Read on …

The D924 from Flers follows the route of the railway to Briouze. According to the novel The Paris Express, the train that ran on October 22nd, 1895, took twenty-one minutes to make the journey.  For a steam train, that’s probably quite good going.  But what I found particularly interesting in this chapter were some of the comments between the characters about the pros and cons of speed and the invasion of constant communications.  I had to wonder what those same characters would say if they had been able to see into the 21st century with our high-speed electric trains, our social media and the World Wide Web!

Briouze is a small town with a population of around 1,500 people, which, like Flers, has been in steady decline since the mid-nineteen-seventies.  The stop here in 1895 was unscheduled, and it was so that one of the deputies for Orne could join the train.  However, rather than sitting in first with the other passengers, this deputy and his wife have their own custom-made carriage, which has to be hitched to the train immediately behind the existing first-class carriages.  This causes the driver and his stoker some consternation.  They are already six minutes late when they come to a stop.  Their pay is affected if they arrive late in Paris, and the stoker has to maintain boiler pressure to ensure the extra weight can be managed effectively on the up and down slopes.   All of which adds to the tension of the journey.

For my little foray around town, I leave the car in the central square dominated by the church dedicated to St Gervais and St Protais.  A quick check of the entrances, and I find a door that is open.  Built between 1080 and 1093 at the behest of Guillaume de Briouze, it is beautifully preserved.  The stained-glass windows don’t look original to me, and, as a result, the interior feels very light and airy.

Outside again, and as the church clock strikes noon, I realise I need to explore the streets to find something for lunch.  A few metres away, there is a boulangerie, and it’s tartelette-au-fraise for me.  A bench in the shade and a half hour to contemplate the exterior of the church and listen to the silence of the place.  Not a single car passes through.  Only an elderly lady appears from a nearby house, a shopping basket hanging over her arm as she makes her way to the baker's.  She’s probably been making that trip every day for decades.

Lunch over.  I look for signs to the station, and that’s when the confusion begins.  There are signs, it’s just that they both point in completely different directions.  I follow the route to the left first and come across the railway tracks that used to be there!  Now it’s a cycle path.  But the old station or maybe the old signal box is now a lovely little three-story house.  Madame sees me staring at her abode and asks me if I’m lost.  I tell her I’m looking for the station.  ‘It’s over there,’ she says, pointing down the cycle track.  ‘The other side of town.’  I thank her and ask for a photo of her house.  She looks bemused but nods her permission anyway.

A trot along the cycle path takes me past a grove of trees and brings me to a brand-new, all-modern, personless, fully functioning station with about 6 or 8 rail tracks in front of it.  As I look down the line, I see something much more in keeping with late-nineteenth-century rail accessories, and I continue following the track.  The original station, still intact, is now a hub for creatives and the use of the townspeople.  I look around the car park, and considering the town is so quiet, there are far more cars parked here than I expected.

Retracing my steps, I follow the brown signs to the château, which once belonged to Guillaume, the baron who magnanimously commissioned the church.  I also discover that he accompanied his namesake to Britain in 1066 and was awarded land in England as a result. As for the château, it is a building of modest proportions and grounds that now functions as the town hall.

I meander back to the car and note the modern juxtaposed with the old.  Another town that was flattened in the forties…

There will be more from my journey following the Granville-Paris Express next month, so keep watching this space…

You can find the previous posts in this series by clicking the links Granville part 1, Granville part 2, Vire, Flers and my review of the book, The Paris Express is Here  

I'm reviewing The Seventh Son ...

... by Sebastian Faulks.  A fascinating and thought-provoking read...

Set in the not-too-distant future, this story introduces the reader to a slightly different world and explores the nature and extent of genetic engineering.  The story gently introduces the reader to the trials and tribulations in the life of central character, Talissa.  At a crossroads in her career and in need of funds, she decides to take a year out to become a surrogate mother for a childless couple, Alaric and Mary.  She applies to an eminent institute where in vitro fertilisation is available for anyone with enough cash.  The Institute is also part of a wider organisation that undertakes research and genetic engineering.
The action then shifts to a conversation between Lukas Parn – a wealthy scientist and owner of the institute and research labs that Talissa will use – and one of his colleagues in the same field.  And it is at this very early point in the story that a seemingly innocent remark foreshadows the catalogue of sinister events that will follow.  ‘I want to do an experiment,’ says Parn.  ‘I want to prove something.’  From here onwards, the tension gradually begins to build.  I found that I could not put this book down.
The narrative, as easily readable as it is, flows really well with a constant backdrop of ever-increasing fear for Talissa and the child she is carrying and for the parents who will adopt that child – Seth, a name that is full of meaning in the context of the story, which I will explore in a following paragraph.  Once Seth is born and delivered to his eagerly awaiting parents, he becomes yet another source of concern for the reader.  Wanting to know what happened to Seth kept me turning the page, to the extent that I read the final two-thirds of the book in one day.
As the child was born and named, I could not help but wonder why he was called Seth.  It seemed such an odd choice for the parents to make, and yes, there is a veiled justification in the text.  But when you consider the Hebrew origins of the name - which means 'appointed', 'placed', or 'put' – you understand that the choice is not random at all.  Add in the ancient Egyptian root – Set, the god of desert storms and chaos – and yet another facet of Seth's character is amplified.  Looking at the biblical connections gives us yet more.  Seth was a replacement son for Adam and Eve after Abel died.  According to biblical genealogy, he was an ancestor of Noah, thereby placing him in a unique position in relation to the story of the ark and the saving of humanity from the floods.  Whilst I fully understand that the stories in the Bible are just that – an explanation of who and  what we were at that time stated in the language and manner of the time – I cannot help but see the parallels between the story of creation and our current capability for genetic engineering.  In many respects, that realisation makes this book one of the most chilling I have ever read.
Towards the end of the story, there is yet another dilemma for the reader, and the ending was not what I was expecting.  This is a disturbing, thought-provoking, but excellent read that fully deserves the five-star rating I have awarded.

If you enjoyed this review you may be interested in my thoughts about Snow Country  or Paris Echo  both by Faulks, or Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh...

I'm continuing my journey following the Granville-Paris Express ...

... and today I'm in Flers, a town in the département of Orne (61) which is part of the region of Normandy.  Read on …

Flers is a typical northern town.  The D524 follows the route of the railway from Vire to the centre of Flers.  The population is around 14,500 and has been in a steady decline since the mid nineteen-seventies.  Not that you would notice this from a stroll through town.  On the day of my visit, it was Ascension Thursday, and the town was very quiet as this is one of the few holy days still remaining in the catholic calendar.  Most of the little shops were closed – apart from the bakeries, of course!  But in and around the church of St-Germain, the streets were lined with empty cars and just as I approached the steps to the main entrance, a sea of people emerged.  The quiet was disturbed, and suddenly the town came alive as families and friends began chatting.  I decided to leave them all to it.  Once a conversation starts in France, who knows how long it will take!

I make my way to the railway station, and I’m very surprised to see the original building still standing.  Built and inaugurated in 1866, it is a single-storied symmetrical building very much of its time and fashion.  Considering the blanket bombing that took place across this area of France in the nineteen-forties, it is something of a little miracle that this station has survived.

As I meander through town, the destruction caused by the bombing is much more obvious. Modern housing and business premises are interspersed with the oddity of a single building from the twenties or thirties.  A park surrounded by individual homes and gardens, mostly modern or recreations of an earlier style, with one sole property that had been there since it was built in the mid-nineteenth century.  At one corner of the park, I come across the war memorial, dedicated to those who gave their lives in the 1914-1918 conflict.  It, too, has survived the destruction that occurred in the forties, along with the chapel of remembrance, built between 1926 and 1932.

My stroll takes me back to the church.  And still some stragglers are standing on the steps continuing their conversation.  I nod and walk past and step into the silence of the neo-gothic nave.  Built in the early 20th century, it has the height and looks every centimetre of style from that much earlier period, when building an edifice this size would have taken decades rather than a few years.  Nevertheless, it is impressive, and the modern take on the art of the ancients who created the stunning stained glass of some of the most revered places in Christendom is a breathtaking meander through modern art.  The church interior opens up other windows on history.  There’s a small chapel dedicated to those who gave their lives in the Maquis and a second memorial to a man who was persecuted for his religion – Catholicism.

Back outside again, and the weather has taken on a chill, grey clouds are skudding across the sky, the talkers have left, and the last of the returnees are moving along the main street on their way home to lunch.

I have one last place to visit, and it’s just a few steps from St-Germain.  The covered market is a magnificent red-brick building that dates from 1883.  As it’s Ascension Thursday, the market is well and truly closed, but I can’t help but take as close a look as I can get.  I make a note to return on a market day when I’m next in this area.  There is also a fortified château here, which has become the town’s museum, and it is also closed.  I’ll save that for another visit on another day ...

There will be more from my journey following the Granville-Paris Express next month.

If you enjoyed this post, you can find the previous posts by clicking the links Granville part 1, Granville part 2, Vire, and my review of the book, The Paris Express, is Here

Please welcome, friend and author, Adrian Williams...

...to my blog this week.  Hi, Adrian and thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to be here.  Your recent release is Yesterday’s News, a crime thriller set in South Africa.  Tell me more ...

Acrian  I was looking to write something with international appeal.  With that in mind, the period from the end of the 1980s to the beginning of the next decade was fertile soil to plough, with the Velvet Revolution in eastern Europe, the first Gulf War in Iraq, and the end of apartheid in South Africa signalling huge social and political changes across the globe.  While plotting a course through that history, I also wove a narrative that confronted the personal impacts upon my characters from the spread of HIV/AIDS, the infected blood scandal and the Hillsborough disaster in the UK.

I needed to put news gathering and reportage at the centre of my tale, and the emergence of satellite television gave me an opportunity to pit two newspaper proprietors against each other in a battle for control of this new broadcast media.  To that end, I created a larger-than-life puppet master in Johannes Botha, whose skirmishes with the real-life Rupert Murdoch form the core of the action.

AEW  What first got you into writing and why?

Adrian   When I was about 12, my mom scraped together the money to buy me a cheap typewriter.  She must have seen something in me, but unfortunately the bloody thing was useless and the keys kept jamming!  After leaving school, my ambitions were curtailed when real life got in the way and I ended up earning a living on the factory floors of the West Midlands.  Finally, at the grand old age of 42, I got my first PC and the world of the word processor was at hand.  Since then, I haven’t looked back.

AEW  You write crime fiction. Is it all imagination or do you do research?

Adrian  As my story is set in recent history (1989-91) I had to extensively research the events covered.  I’m old enough to vividly recall them, but I didn’t want to make mistakes (or end up getting sued!) so I was meticulous in my work.  Thankfully, a lot of my readers have complimented me on my attention to detail.

AEW  Have you tried/dabbled with other genres or writing for other forms of media?

Adrian  Yes, I don’t want to get pigeonholed as a crime thriller writer, so my next release will be an urban comedy called ‘Tenement Tales’, followed by a children’s story aimed at helping kids to make friends at school.  I’d love to try my hand at a screenplay for ‘Yesterday’s News’ – I can dream, can’t I?

AEW  Absolutely!  Making stuff up is the best bit of being an author for me.  But back ot my quiestions, famous authors such as Roald Dahl and Dylan Thomas had a special space for writing.  Do you have a writing shed of your own?

Adrian   I wish I could say I write from my villa overlooking the Med, but being an honest boy, the tiny box room of my house is my creative sanctuary.  I take a notebook with me on holidays and suchlike to scribble ideas or to make notes on locations that may be included in my stories.  Feeling particularly inspired during a holiday in Croatia, I wrote a rough draft of about 25 pages of Yesterday’s News.

AEW  And finally, if you had a whole afternoon to yourself and could choose to spend it with any one individual, living or dead, or a character from a book, who would it be and what would you discuss?

Adrian  That’s a no brainer!  I’d love to pick the brains of the fella who I consider to be the greatest Englishman of all time, Mr Charles Dickens.  We’re talking about the first international celebrity here, the first writer to perform his work on a theatrical stage. What must that have been like?  He was Elvis, Bowie, Freddie Mercury – the rock and roller of his day.

He gave the wealthy world a conscience and I’d want to glean his thoughts on social injustice and prejudice of all forms.  What would he think of today’s politicians?

Would he incorporate today’s innovations (AI for example) in his creative process? Would the convenience of Google be preferable to personal observation?  I’d be fascinated to see him include motor cars, mobile phones and the internet in a contemporary work.

Before we went our separate ways, I’d want to know why he felt the need to finish off Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop?  I’d tell him he owes me an afternoon of tears for that one!

AEW  Well, that’s a refreshing change from some of the comments I get about Mr Dickens.  He’s one of my writing heros too!

about the author...  Adrian is a proud son of Birmingham, England.  After leaving St Thomas Aquinas grammar school at 16, I earned a living with my hands, either in heavy industry grafting on the factory floors of our local motor manufacturers, or on (usually) freezing cold building sites.  In later life, I changed careers after acquiring qualifications in marketing and business management, while developing an interest in writing professionally.

With support from my long-suffering partner, Sheila, a love of travel, sports, history, politics and the arts have enriched my life in so many ways, and I live in hope that the innocent child who entered the world will eventually leave it as a well-rounded individual.

about the book... Marcus Botha, a ruthlessly corrupt mineral-mining and shipbuilding tycoon from South Africa, dramatically sells up and moves to 1970s London, reinventing himself as a UK media magnate.  For two decades his notorious national newspaper, The Horizon stirs the

imagination with its sensation-seeking journalism, whether luridly chronicling celebrity sex scandals or whipping up AIDS hysteria.

At the peak of his powers, the Botha brand suffers seismic damage when his paper’s inaccurate coverage of the Hillsborough football stadium disaster provokes national anger. To deflect criticism, he decides to stage two bespoke sporting extravaganzas in Las Vegas and Sun City to be broadcast on his fledgling satellite TV network, though both fail miserably.

When apartheid ends in his homeland, rumours of his deadly past emerge, leading to a murder investigation and charges. Compounding his problems, social unrest in the UK boils over via the Poll Tax riots, leading to the fall of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. As a vocal advocate of Thatcherism, his hopes for her support in his battle to avoid extradition go with her.

With his problems mounting, he is blindsided by a corporate betrayal which threatens to bring his dazzling empire crashing down.

Can the cunning Botha avoid justice and financial ruin?

You can get the book Here

You can follow Adrian on his author page on Amazon on his Website and on Facebook or on Instagram

I'm very pleased to announce ...

... that book 7 in the Jacques Forêt Mystery Series has a cover and is about to be released.  Read on for more info ...

The last eighteen months have been a significant trial for me and my books.  At the end of September in 2024, Crooked Cat/Darkstroke, my first publisher, decided to call it a day and closed their publishing house.  At that time, I had been with Crooked Cat since 2015, when the very first Jacques Forêt story hit the streets.

More importantly, had it not been for Steph and Laurence, these books may never have seen the light of day!  They took a chance on a complete unknown who quite definitely was not tech-, promo-, or marketing-savvy in any way, shape, or form.  Since 2015 it's been a long and steep learning curve.  But Steph and Laurence, and the wonderful family of authors they supported, were always there to answer questions, debate issues, and shepherd me along when I needed it.

It was with very great sadness that I found myself querying after almost ten years.  It was also quite frightening to see how many things in the world of publishing had changed from when I made my first submissions in 2014/2015.

In January 2025, I found what I thought would be a new and forever home for my Jacques books.  The first six stories were handed over, and the seventh was submitted in August last year.  And then, I waited.  And waited.  And waited some more, only to find that my second publisher had decided to re-organise internally, which meant that my books and those of some other authors no longer fitted their remit.  In December 2025, I was back submitting again.  To misquote Lady Bracknell from Wilde's play, The Importance of Being Earnest, it seemed to me that losing one publisher 'may be regarded as a misfortune,' but to lose two 'looks like carelessness.'  And yes, the news of the re-organisation hit me like a wrecking ball, and I spent far too long wondering what it was that I had done wrong.

However, like the proverbial 'plodder' that I am, and I have any number of school reports confirming that, I picked myself up and carried on.  Becoming living proof of the fact that I 'always get there in the end,' it gives me the greatest of pleasure to write the following words : Meyrueis, book seven in the Jacques Forêt Mystery Series, will be published on Monday, May 11th, in both e-format and paperback.  To give you a little taste of the story that will be inside the fabulous new cover above, the burb is below.

... about the book Whilst conducting a routine security survey at a business in the city of Mende, Jacques comes across some facts that do not add up. Further surveillance work leads to a complicated web of lies and deceit.

The release of an old adversary from prison brings further work for Jacques and danger for his team and his son. The discovery of a body in the quiet town of Meyrueis adds yet another facet to a difficult investigation.

Can Jacques weave the numerous threads together to resolve the case, keep everyone safe, and identify the killer?

You can get the e-book Here, and the paperback will follow in the next week or so.

I'm reviewing The Unforgiving Town ...

... by Joan Livingston.  Read on to find out more about this brilliant story ...

Joan Livingston, a fellow author, is a great writer of crime stories.  I have thoroughly enjoyed her Isabel Long mystery series, and Joan has kindly supplied posts for this blog, too.  So, it was a great pleasure to pick up the second book in her Hilltown Crime Series to read as soon as it was published.

The Unforgiving Town is the sequel to The Sacred Dog, and both books are set in a New England hilltown.  As, Joan states in her introduction to the series at the back of book 2, ‘Crime in a small town can get personal – sometimes with deadly consequences.’  I knew as soon as I opened the book that I was in for a roller-coaster of a read.
Al Kitchen returns to his home town following 18 years in jail for beating a man to death during a botched robbery.  He has nowhere to go except the old house his grandmother was living in, which is being cared for by his cousin, Bernie.  There’s no job for Al to come back to, and the occupation he originally had, as a truck driver, is now beyond him because he has no driving license and his truck needs fixing.  After serving his time, his future seems hopeless, and no one in Holden is going to cut him any slack except his cousin.  Scott, the local police chief, of course, realises the situation could be difficult and is trying to keep a lid on the situation.  Add into the mix the death of Al whilst out riding his bike, and you’ve got a page-turning mystery that will keep you glued to your seat.
There are a lot of characters in this book, but they are all distinct, and some are more likeable than others.  But that’s how it is in any small, provincial town the world over.  I really enjoyed reading about small-town America, and Joan presents the scenarios and characters with great depth and empathy.  The dynamics between some of the principal characters fizz with tension, and the culprit behind the death is well-hidden in plain sight.
The narrative reads exceptionally well, as does the dialogue.  As Scott’s investigation into Al’s death ramps up to an unexpected conclusion, I was left considering murder (or was it?) in small-town America and a plot that kept me guessing to the end.

You can get the book Here

If you want to read more about Joan and her writing, check out the following links:  Chasing the Case   Writing Poetry   Creating new characters

I’m celebrating the life and work ...

…  of the Bronte sisters today because Charlotte was born on this day in 1816.  Read on …

It’s natural to think of the Bronte sisters as being only Charlotte, Emily and Anne, as they are the ones we know most about and are always associated with their brother Branwell, and their books.  But when Charlotte was born in 1816, she was the third of a family of six children.  Her two elder sisters were Maria and Elizabeth.

Born in Thornton near Bradford, Charlotte and the rest of the family moved to Haworth in 1820 because Patrick Bronte had secured the post of perpetual curate at St Michael’s and All Angels Church in the village.  Soon after arriving in Haworth, Maria Bronte (née Branwell) fell ill and subsequently died on September 15th, 1821.  The death of Maria, left their father Patrick with six children to rear and a full-time post as curate to manage alongside his own grief.  In August 1824, Charlotte and Emily, along with their two older sisters Maria and Elizabeth, were sent to the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge, Lancashire.  In 1825, because conditions at the school were insanitary and following an outbreak of Typhus, Patrick brought his children home to the paronsage.  Unfortunately, it was too late for Maria and Elizabeth and they both died shortly afterwards.  Charlotte always maintained that, her slight build, short stature, poor eyesight, and recurring bouts of ill-health, were a direct consequence of the conditions at the school.  I can only wonder at the extent to which those early experiences featured in her book, Jane Eyre.

At the age of nine Charlotte, in conjunction with her Aunt, Elizabeth Branwell, became guardian and mentor for the younger siblings.  It was during this period of her life that Charlotte first took up writing and story-making.  She also began writing poetry and creating plays.

At the age of fifteen in 1831, Charlotte was sent to Roe Head Boarding School in Mirfield.  It was here that she met two other girls who became life-long friends and correspondents.  The following year she left the school to return home to teach her sisters.

In 1835, Charlotte took up a teaching post at Roe Head and she remained there until 1838. Her time at the school was not happy and she immersed herself in her writing and completed Farewell to Angria in 1839.  Between 1839 and 1841 Charlotte worked as a governess for a number of local families.  I’m sure some of those experiences must have provided her with material for scenes in her later books, too.

In 1842, Charlotte accompanied her sister Emily to Brussels and the Pensionnat Héger, a boarding school run by Constantin Héger and his wife.  Both sisters were scholars at the establishment.  Although Héger (1809-1896) was a renowned professor and literary figure of that time, he is largely remembered now only for his relationship with Charlotte.  Indeed, was he the individual who inspired the titular character in her later work, The Professor?  Whilst he may have had a choleric temperament, he was a great influence on Charlotte’s writing.  Her time in Brussels came to an end in October 1842.  The sisters returned to the UK because their aunt had died.

In the following January, Charlotte travelled to Brussles alone to take up a teaching post at the pensionnat.  That journey, which she found alarming, would later be recreated in her book, Villette.  Her period working at the school was solitary, her interest in Constantin became obsessive and unrequited, and she missed her home in Yorkshire.  Twelve months later, she was back in Howarth.

A brief period working with her sisters to create their own school proved unsuccessful and spurred Charlotte on to pursue her own writing career.  In May 1846, and at Charlotte’s insistence, the sisters paid for a collection of poems to be published under the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.  It would seem that self-publishing is not solely the invention of the 21st century!  The collection hardly sold at all, but Charlotte made sure that some prominent gentlemen-of-words of the time were presented with a copy.  Later that same year, Charlotte submitted The Professor, Emily’s Wuthering Heights, and Anne’s Agnes Grey to a publisher in London.  Her sisters' stories were accepted, but Charlotte’s manuscript was rejected. Undeterred, Charlotte submitted Jane Eyre to a different publisher in August 1847.  This novel was published shortly afterwards and became a success to such an extent that it is now considered to be a classic.  In 1848, Charlotte began her third novel, Shirley.  The work on this book was overshadowed by the illness and death of each of her three siblings over a nine-month period.  Shirley was eventually published in October 1849 to a less-than-welcoming audience of readers.  The book never achieved the status of Jane Eyre.

The sisters' workroom, Haworth

Villette, Charlotte’s final novel, was published in 1853.  The following year Charlotte married Arthur Nicholls, an Irish clergyman from Antrim, on June 29th, 1854.  It appears that marriage suited Charlotte, but it was not to last long.  After finding some happiness, she and her unborn child died on March 31st, 1855.

As an appropriate postscript to a life dedicated to writing, The Professor was published posthumously in 1857.  Charlotte left the beginnings of another novel when she died, and that unfinished manuscript, along with some of her earlier writings, has been completed and published.

… if you enjoyed this post, you might also be interested in my posts on the life and works of  M. R. James, Virginia Woolf,  Rumer Godden,  or   A. A. Milne