I am delighted to welcome Angela Wren to my blog today. Not only is Angela an actor and director, she is also the author of short stories and comic-flash fiction. She very kindly agreed to take time out of her busy schedule to tell me a little about the background to her first novel, Messandrierre, which has just been released.
First of all, thank you Victoria for allowing me the
opportunity to write on your blog. I
hope your readers will find my little nuggets of wisdom - assuming there are
some - interesting and useful.
I'll introduce myself as something of a scribbler and I've been
doing that since I was about 8 or 9. I
even liked my creative writing homework.
And it's OK; you don't need to tell me how peculiar it is for a child to
actually like homework, any homework!
I was first introduced to France as a teenager and, frankly,
I've been hooked ever since. My
scribblings then centred on what I'd seen, where I'd been, the people I'd
met. Not that any of it came together as
a story at that time. How could it with
the standard teenager's attention span!
Then grown-up life and work got in the way and I spent less
time in France and more time in front of a computer writing planning and
strategy documents as my life spiralled through a career in business change and
project management.
My light bulb moment was my decision to escape the rat
race. I started visiting areas of France
I'd never had the time to go to before; I stayed in places I'd just driven
through in the past and I wrote more seriously.
But when you have scenery like this -
to look at for as long as
you want, it is hard not to be inspired.
I visited the Cévennes
and took my Stevenson with me and, over three weeks, I followed his route from
Le Monastier to Allais along with my version of Modestine - a Landrover! That journey took me across some stunning
countryside, tiny villages where everything stopped for lunch and the family,
through vast groves of walnut trees and along winding mountain passes.
To this day I am certain that I stood on one hillside, looking down on a
small farm and a few other houses, in exactly the same spot that Stevenson must
have been to create a sketch I have in another book of his.
In a village in Burgundy, I happened across a two roomed
museum dedicated to Renoir. His studio
was in an outbuilding and for a couple of euros I went to have a look. Expecting only to be allowed to look through
the windows, I was stunned to find that I could actually go inside. So I have had the inestimable pleasure of
treading in Renoir's footsteps! And, it
seems to me that there are lots of little places like this the length and
breadth of the country - you just need to search them out.
Need I mention the cuisine?
Probably not, but I wonder who else has driven across the Puy de Dome
and found a large farmhouse with French cars parked outside and a hand-written
menu drawing-pinned to the door frame. I
walked in to discover a large room filled with trestle tables and benches and
Madame made the people at the nearest table squeeze up to fit me in. The food was simple, the taste phenomenal and
the ambiance buzzing.
So, setting my first novel, Messandrierre, in France, seemed
to me at least, to be a logical progression from those early scribblings. My book is the first in a series of murder
mysteries and features my investigator Jacques Forêt. Messandrierre is the
name of my fictional village in the Cévennes
and the story begins in September 2007 because when I was there at the time, it
snowed!
Author Bio:
Having followed a career in Project and Business Change Management, I now work as an Actor and Director at a local theatre. I’ve been writing, in a serious way, for about 5 years. My work in project management has always involved drafting, so writing, in its various forms, has been a significant feature throughout my adult life.
I particularly enjoy the challenge of plotting and planning different genres of work. My short stories vary between contemporary romance, memoir, mystery and historical. I also write comic flash-fiction and have drafted two one-act plays that have been recorded for local radio. The majority of my stories are set in France where I like to spend as much time as possible each year.
You can learn more about Angela by visiting her website and blog;
Website :
www.angelawren.co.uk
Blog :
www.jamesetmoi.blogspot.com
Sacrificing his job in investigation following an incident in Paris, Jacques Forêt has only a matter of weeks to solve a series of mysterious disappearances as a Gendarme in the rural French village of Messandrierre.
But, as the number of missing persons rises, his difficult and hectoring boss puts obstacles in his way. Steely and determined, Jacques won't give up and, when a new Investigating Magistrate is appointed, he becomes the go-to local policeman for all the work on the case.
Will he find the perpetrators before his lover, Beth, becomes a victim?
Messandrierre – the first in a new crime series featuring investigator, Jacques Forêt.
Available from:
