Review: A totally satisfying read for the summer...or any other season!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 26, 2013
It can be a serious challenge for a writer to weave three different time periods together in a convincing manner. At first sight, what could possibly link the eventful days after the slaughter of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury in December 1170 with rural occupied France during the Second World War and again a few years later before the introduction of the Euro? And if such a link is to be made, will it be credible?Susan Louineau achieves a spectacular triumph in `The Chapel in the Woods'. Firstly, it is a top-of-the-class romantic story with a great deal of suspense and a gradual revelation of the importance of the common denominator - the subject of the book's title. Secondly, the characters across all three periods are all well drawn and convincingly reflect their times. The twelfth century was a superstitious, fearful period; wartime France was a place of dangerous courage, and rural France in recent years is, well, timeless and charming. As a resident of France, I can concur with the author's reflections on the good things - "breakfast outside, lunch outside, dinner outside", the availability of beautiful property and cheap wine - and the less attractive rampant corruption and malicious gossip of modern rural France. Her real-life experiences of living in France lend this first novel authority.Each period in the novel has its heroes and heroines, and there are villains - although they are chiefly males! Each time period is successfully concluded with the author neatly completing each story and avoiding frustrating loose ends. By any measure, this book has been a success and rightly so. I look forward to Susan Louineau's next novel with impatience.Roderick Craig Low. Author of `Going Nowhere'.