I live in a hotel…or rather a small country inn in a tiny village in France. These days it’s only the memory of an inn, with a dining room, the main former café, and bedrooms with numbers on the doors. It stopped functioning as an inn back in the 1950s, but the building is four or five hundred years old, so who knows what its history is? The only records I can find begin in 1881. However, living in a hotel, sleeping in the different rooms certainly fires my imagination, but I suppose it would stimulate any writer.
I took up the challenge in writing A Room in Blake’s Folly, and instead of setting the story in France, I placed the hotel in a semi-ghost town in Nevada, a place of abandoned clapboard shacks, endless wind, and scraggly vegetation. In this book, six stories lead into each another, and over the ensuing century, the same characters either appear, or we learn more about their fate.
Of course, as with any story that takes place in the past, getting the historical context right was a challenge, and I needed to do much research so that people sounded natural in each time period, learning what towns were like, the clothes people of different social classes wore, discovering the prejudices and social movements of each era.
But was it fun to write? Yes, it was wonderful, and I might even go back to visit that world again in another story…
Excerpt from A Room in Blake’s Folly
Hearing the purr of a car’s engine, something rare on these back streets, she turned. A large Oldsmobile, an old-fashioned car, elegant in its antiquated way, and obviously well cared for, was coming in her direction. She knew whose it was.
The car stopped when it reached her. Out stepped Alexander, smiling, dapper in fine leather driving gloves and a cream-colored suit, the sartorial choice of those with a well-nourished bank account. He removed his flat tweed cap, greeted her, and Susanna noted how his pomaded hair, glossy and silver, stayed perfectly in place. How easy it was for men with no combs or pins to battle with every day.
“I certainly didn’t expect to run into you out here,” she said, holding out her hand. “But it has given me the perfect opportunity to thank you for the roses. They are beautiful.”
Briefly, he took her hand in his firm grip and bowed.
“Yellow. For friendship,” she added.
He met her gaze evenly. “And joy.”
Joy? “Ah. I didn’t know.”
His smile was warm. “I didn’t expect to run into you out here either.”
Susanna laughed. “I suppose most people do think I’m some strange night creature who never risks daylight.”
A line of embarrassed confusion appeared between his brows. “I didn’t…Excuse me if I…”
She couldn’t let him finish. Reaching out again, her fingers touched the soft fabric of his elegant suit jacket. “I know you didn’t mean anything offensive. You’ll have to forgive my frivolity. This spring air does have that effect on me.” With a strange reluctance, she let her hand drop. “However, I do come out walking every day.”
“So do I.” He cocked a curious eyebrow. “But I’ve never run into you before.”
“Because I rarely head in this direction, southwest of the town.”
“And what brings you here today?”
She was unprepared for the question, and the real answer would be too revealing. Why had she come out this way? Because she’d been curious. She’d wanted to catch a glimpse of that wooden mansion where he lived, that swanky building with its broad front porch and high balcony. Ever since the arrival of those yellow roses, she had thought about him constantly—although why pretty flowers had turned her head in such a way was beyond her comprehension.
https://books2read.com/BlakesFollyRomance
Trailer: https://youtu.be/Wt3VkYUTVNk
Author Page https://www.j-arleneculiner.com
2 comments:
A Room in Blake's Folly sounds wonderful. I've visited the old ghost towns in Nevada many, many times. Such history. I envy you for living in France and in such a unique hotel/inn. :)
Living in an ancient building with stone walls almost a metre thick mean the place is icy cold in winter (back in the good old days, people kept their coats in when indoors) although mercifully cool in the hottest summer days.
Post a Comment