She’s on the road again
Book Two of Trobairitz is due for publication. Her real name is Fleur but she prefers the nickname Weed. In Book One, Trobairitz the Storyteller, readers learn how she came by that nickname and why she still prefers to use it. At the overnight truck stop near Béziers in southern France, a group of drivers become used to her regular visits as she returns from her delivery runs into Spain. They’ve encouraged her to open up a little more and they return each week to hear more of the stories she tells.
Their favourite character is Madame Catherine Joubert, the 76 year old former sex worker who owns the best house in the village and has some sort of hold over the young mayor.
A landslide at Christmas sees Weed working alongside Jimi in the rescue mission but any further development of a relationship between them is interrupted.
Book Two is here at last
It’s been a long time in the making. There are several reasons for that.
Hiraeth – Hiraeth, commonly is translated as “homesickness” but it is more than that. It means a deep sense of longing, a yearning for that which has past, a sense of homesickness tinged with grief or sorrow over the lost or departed. I couldn’t bring myself to continue writing novels set in the place I had lost. It was too painful. I needed time to heal myself. I did that by writing about what had happened. I published People Who Hurt, my only non fiction book.
Writing the truth brought its own pain as I relived what I had allowed to happen. It was then time to move on. Still, I couldn’t visualise my setting in Languedoc, now Occitanie, without wishing I was there. So, in 2017 I wrote and published a different novel, The Sandman and Mrs Carter, a psychological mystery set in Wiltshire and a second collection of short stories, Queer as Folk.
In 2021 I published a further completely different novel, set in Norfolk where I now live, A Measured Man. Poignantly humorous, A Measured Man is a not-so-romantic comedy.
Launch date: November Twelfth
It’s a great feeling knowing how far I’ve come. I still have CRPS and on high pain days I can’t write anything at all. But now the emotional pain has gone. I don’t grieve for the place I lost. I can think of it and remember the places I loved with warmth in my heart instead of deep yearning.
This second volume follows on immediately from the first so even though it could stand alone I strongly recommend reading book one first. Book Two brings further conflict and, in Montalhan sans Vents, new characters cause drama, scandal, a wedding and a funeral.
There might even be a hint of romance if only Jimi didn’t annoy her so much.
Here she is. Preorder for the ebook is available now. Paperback is also available on the twelfth November.
Click on this link to go to my Amazon page
Would you like to drop me a line? I love to hear from readers. Fill in the contact form to receive latest news. Your email remains private.
