Her Book Self

As I mentioned in my last post, I've never been to France (nor England) but I do love that books can transport me oceans away and provide me with much needed scenic vacations throughout my urban commuting.  It is my pleasure to chat today with an author across the Atlantic from my Midwestern self who whisked me away to a beautiful countryside in The Tapestry of Love!  Please join me in welcoming author Rosy Thornton!

*applause, applause*

Tell us a little about yourself and your journey as an author.

Hello, and thank you for inviting me here to your blog.

I’m Rosy, I’m the mother of two daughters and I lecture in Law at the University of Cambridge, where I’m a Fellow of Emmanuel College. For the first 41 of my 47 years it never crossed my mind for a moment to write a novel, or even so much as a short story. It didn’t occur to me that I’d have any aptitude for it; lawyers, after all, are concentric, analytical thinkers, dissectors and distinguishers, who devote their time to the pedantic splitting of hairs. We are famed for our lack of imagination. But as an academic I was at least used to the process of writing, of putting words on paper for others to read, which is a large part of the job. And I suppose I had always had a rich – if unacknowledged – fantasy life; as soon as I did put fingers to keyboard, the ideas began to flow. It was as if I’d spent twenty years exercising only the left side of my brain, and my right brain was longing to strike back.

My first novel, ‘More Than Love Letters’, was published in 2006 by Headline Review, and three more have followed, to date. ‘The Tapestry of Love’, which came out in October last year, is my latest.

The setting of Tapestry of Love is delightful and you really brought to life the region of the National Park in the Cévennes Mountains. How did you choose this beautiful region as the story's backdrop?

I wanted to write a book about a woman who begins a new life in an alien environment, in order to map the challenges she faces and to consider the question of how we put down roots in a place and in a community. France was the obvious choice for me, as my brother (when he married a Frenchwoman) and then my parents (when they retired) have all made the move to live there. The Cévennes itself was just somewhere I’d visited; I spent a fortnight’s holiday there almost twenty years ago, but somehow it laid a powerful hold on my imagination. It is remote and ancient and underpopulated, allowing me to explore issues of loneliness and isolation. And, for anyone who doesn’t know it, I can tell you that it’s also the most beautiful place on earth.

Your book taps into the desire that many people have to experience a simpler life and a retreat to the countryside away from the fast pace of city living. Do you consider yourself a city or country person? How does your style of living compare with that of your protagonist Catherine Parkstone?

I suppose I am a country girl at heart. I was brought up in a village in Suffolk and live in a village again now. It’s true I commute into Cambridge to my job at the university, but Cambridge is a small city in rural East Anglia – really just an overgrown market town. The main difference between Catherine’s life and mine is that my own is hectically busy, juggling a full-time job and a family as well as the writing – so escaping with Catherine to her existence of peace and solitude in the mountains, with only herself to please, was a glorious fantasy for me! I also spend most of my time working with my brain – whether it’s doing law or writing fiction, it’s all thinking of one sort or another. I do cook, and I used to paint a little when I was younger, but I’d love to spend more time in activity which is physically creative. Catherine’s life, therefore, with her tapestry work and seamstressing, her cooking and her gardening, is perhaps the embodiment of another of my fantasies.

The supporting cast of the novel was very realistic and I loved Catherine's family and neighbors! Did you have the entire cast in mind before you began writing or did new characters pop into the story as you went along?

I began with only a vague notion of the three main actors in what passes for a plot: Catherine, her sister Bryony, and her new neighbour Patrick Castagnol. I’m not one of those authors who plan their work meticulously in advance; I’m what is known in the trade as a ‘pantser’ – that is, I write by the seat of my pants! When each new character is introduced, I have only the haziest notion of what he or she is going to be like: an age and sex, perhaps a glimpse of some basic physical characteristics, and some sense of their key personality traits. They start out as little more than ‘types’, but as I write, as they begin to speak and to interact with the rest of my cast, they gradually take shape and become themselves. I can’t sit down in the abstract and ‘design’ a fully fledged character out of the context of a story. I find I have to get to know them slowly, through what they do and say and how they react to events, just as we do the people we meet in real life.

Did you have extensive knowledge of tapestries and needlework already or did you research the topics specifically for this book? Where did you learn so much about Catherine's craft?

I must admit I can’t so much as sew on a button, myself, without its falling off again within the week. But my mum used to design and stitch her own needlepoint tapestries – until, very sadly, the encroachment of Parkinson’s in recent years obliged her to stop. And I have always admired the fabulous tapestries which adorn the walls of so many French châteaux – as well as harbouring an inexplicable interest in the history of the European silk industry!

(Purists, of course, would argue that Catherine’s tapestries are not really tapestries at all, being stitched and not woven – just as the Bayeux Tapestry is not a tapestry either. But I decided to dare their wrath; the French use the word ‘tapisserie’ for creations of both types, and I was happy to do the same.)

Tapestry of Love is the only work of yours that I have read (so far) but I notice you have three other books I can be looking for!  Will you share a little about your other books? Do you have a favorite among your own novels?

Two of my other three books are essentially romantic comedies, though the first one, ‘More Than Love Letters’ also has an edge of political satire. It is an epistolary novel, about an idealistic young schoolteacher who writes campaigning letters to her local MP, and ends up falling in love with him.

My favourite book, however, is probably ‘Hearts and Minds’, which is a campus novel set in a fictional Cambridge college, with all its political manouevrings and backstabbings. I had great fun writing it (winding up my colleagues by telling them they were going to be in it), and no shortage of material to draw on – though I actually had to tone down some of the eccentricities of the place to make it believable to an outsider!

What authors or books would you say have inspired or influenced you?

I was inspired to begin writing fiction by Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘North and South’ – or rather, more specifically, by a BBC television adaptation of the novel which was screened in 2004. Or – even more specifically, and to be perfectly candid – by leading actor Richard Armitage, who enslaved half the female population of Great Britain with his smouldering portrayal of millowner John Thornton. After watching the series, I went online to find out more about it, and discovered the world (previously unknown to me) of internet ‘fanfic’. Here were people posting online their own stories based on Gaskell’s characters. I was impressed by the quality of the writing, and felt moved to have a go myself; four months later I found I had written a full-length pastiche sequel to ‘North and South’.

It was complete bilge, of course, but by then I was thoroughly smitten with the whole adventure of writing fiction, and went straight on to start my own independent story – the novel which became ‘More Than Love Letters’. It is no coincidence that the heroine of that book is called Margaret after Margaret Hale from ‘North and South’ – or that the hero’s name is Richard. No prizes for guessing who was in my mind as I imagined him…

What projects are you currently working on?

I have one more novel completed and in the process of submission, and another just begun – both of them set back in England in my native East Anglia. But, if you’ll forgive me, I never like to say too much about my books until they have a publisher, for fear of jinxing things!

Where can we find out more about you and your work?

Please do drop in a see me at my website, here: http://www.rosythornton.com


Thank you so much for your interesting questions, Lisa, and for having me along to talk to you.

Every once in while I like to challenge myself to review a novel in a single word.  Obviously, as a blogger, I know that I'm way more verbose than I probably need to be when describing books, but I suppose that's why I find it fun to see if I can identify a single word - usually an adjective - to sum up my feelings about an entire novel.  Whether it is "hilarious", "thrilling", "powerful", or "heartbreaking" I can often pinpoint one to capture my feelings.  If I were to pick a single word to encompass my review of Rosy Thonton's book The Tapestry of Love, that word would be: beautiful. 

Catherine Parkstone is a divorced woman with grown children who seizes the chance to make a new start when an opportunity to move to France presents itself. Settling in the countryside in a scenic and rural hamlet in the Cévennes Mountains, Catherine nestles in and sets up her own business as a seamstress. The landscape is picturesque, the work is a pleasure, and the neighbors are delightfully charming - especially the intriguing Patrick Castagnol. But when French bureaucracy puts a kink in her plans and a visit from her city-girl sister Bryony complicates Catherine's budding relationship with Patrick, Catherine must decide if her idyllic picture of life in France can ever be the reality she hoped for.

The Tapestry of Love was a wonderful novel. Rosy Thornton brings the people and countryside of the Cévennes National Park to light in stunning detail. Catherine Parkstone was a character written with a degree of realism that had her climbing off the pages. She was fully drawn and fully endearing; and the equally complex supporting characters came to life interacting with her. I loved her passion and talent for embroidery and upholstery - what could be construed as a mundane, domestic task is an art form for Catherine, and through her eyes, it is enchanting to the reader as well.

As much as this is a character centered story, it is also a novel about place. The gorgeous backdrop of the Cévennes Mountains calls to Catherine and as she falls in love with the region, so does the reader. From the first experience Catherine has with the transhumance - a grand migration of the area's livestock - the reader sees that the Cévennes setting is a foreign world for the heroine, and it is a breathtaking journey to discover if she dares to truly make it her home.

For setting, characters, and overall writing style, it should be no surprise that the word I would choose for this book is "beautiful".  From start to finish it was a lovely work that left me longing for a bit of rural escape.  Though I don't see my roads leading me to France any time soon, I will definitely be led to check out more of Thornton's work.

Recently I received a paperback copy of Jane Eyre (I read it originally on my Kindle) with the following cover:

This is the movie tie-in cover from the most recent film adaptation, but I actually really like the stylized form of the very plain looking Jane superimposed with the profile of Mr. Rochester.  A while back I did a cover survey of Emma by Jane Austen after I noticed a reader with a very contemporary-styled dust jacket on the book and I thought it would be interesting to do a similar broad scoped comparison of covers for Jane Eyre.

Check out even more covers here.  Quite the variety and stylistic approach.  I'm always amazed at the marketing that goes into redesigning a classic and I often wonder if these new approaches really draw new readers in.  I'm sort of of the impression that most people reading Jane Eyre are reading it for a purpose (such as, "I have to write a five page English Lit paper on Jane Eyre, I should probably read it" or "Gee, I'm thirty years old and I've never read Jane Eyre, I should remedy that situation"), but it's fully possible that there are casual readers that wander into their local bookstore and think that Charlotte Bronte is some hot new author and want to check out her latest work.

Do you have a favorite Jane Eyre cover?  Do you prefer the more modern or the more classic styles?  Which covers most evoke the story to you?

A Weekend to ReCOVER is a meme hosted by Her Book Self that is dedicated to analyzing, comparing and discussing cover art.  Feel free to share your thoughts on the Jane Eyre covers here or link up with your own post to talk about these covers or any book art that strikes your fancy!

"The worst way to read, he said, is with the thought that you do not have enough time. The only way to read is in the knowledge that there is an infinite amount of time stretching ahead, and that if one wishes to taste only a few sentences per day one is free to do so."

~Gabriel Josipovici, Moo Pak

This is a quote from a book I haven't read, but I love, love, love what it says about reading.  For anyone whose ever been burdened by a toppling mountain of books TBR or starts looking at their shelf space as BABLE (books acquired beyond life expectancy) I think this sentiment is a nice one to take to heart.  As I pondered my shelves last night wondering what my next read should be I hesitated before delicately peeling Clash of Kings out of its dust jacket.  As I opened the weighty tome, inhaling the five year dormant book scent, I flipped to the end, paged through the index, and stared at the final page of story (no spoiler fears, it's a reread).  Three little numbers taunted me from the corner of the page - 728.  Seriously?  Seven hundred twenty eight pages???  Seven hundred twenty eight pages that I've already read - and I'm going to read them again?!?  All seven hundred twenty eight of them??!?

Yes.  Even when there are countless other books waiting for me.  Even when my lightweight-hold-in-one-hand Kindle is fully loaded with a plentiful selection of fiction, nonfiction, and short stories in a huge span of genres - I'm rereading Clash of Kings.  And I'm refusing to feel rushed or bogged down or any sense of deadline while I do so.  I'm not going to feel guilty that I should instead embark on something new to me.  I'm not going to look at the other books on my shelf - some of which were lovingly given to me as gifts and one which was even lent to me by a friend - and feel that I should read them first.  I want to read another George R.R. Martin.  I love his world and his characters and even though I know their story, there are nuances and details that have faded from my memory.  It's the book I want to read and it would be frivolous to rob myself of that enjoyment for any reason. 

"Frozen in Time" photo found here

Which brings me to the above quote and leaves me asking, why don't I usually look at books with the feeling of "an infinite amount of time"?  Why don't I feel that I can read as much or as little as I want?  I know I used to.  Back before I actually kept track of the books I read, I could wander the library and either come home with bags filled with choices or just a single novel in hand.  Now I'm much more direct - find the books I want, place a hold when necessary, pick them up, read them, return them, repeat.  And if I wasn't quite in the mood for something I borrowed, I would read whatever I had lying around, even if it was one that I had been through cover-to-cover multiple times.  I suppose things changed when I started to discover how many new books and new authors I wanted to read.  The more I branched out, the more I realized how many good books were out there that I had not read; the more that people began to tell me about great books that I should read; and the more I began to crave reading them all.  Once I started recording titles on an official "To Be Read" list, reading became something to get done rather than something to enjoy.

But no longer.  I read what I want.  I read when I want.  If that means I get through 110 books in a year, great.  If it's only 53 that's perfectly fine too.  There may be titles that linger TBR for years or more, while other titles have a span of only minutes in the queue.  The list itself is there only as a memory assistant, an adviser of sorts but never a tyrant.  Reading is my luxury.  It is my joy.

And for it, I do have "an infinite amount of time". 

R.A. Salvatore has done it again.  For those unfamiliar with this classic series of "boy fiction" Drizzt Do'Urden is the dark elf hero that has starred in a long string of fantasy masterpieces by author R.A. Salvatore.  Twenty-one books later the Legend of Drizzt epic is still not running out of steam.  In the first book of the newest trilogy, Neverwinter, an older though not impeccably wiser, Drizzt sets off with his long-time friend the dwarf king Breunor Battlehammer on an adventure to find a lost Dwarven city, the titular Gauntlgrym.  Unexpectedly a different dwarf and dark elf pair - Salvatore anti-heroes Jarlaxle and Athrogate - are first on the scene; and not surprisingly, mischief and mayhem erupt leading all four to team up - along with a newly introduced elfish warrior named Dahlia - to find the treasure and save the world. 

Though the plot borders on cliche, and was arguably used in one of Salvatore's earliest books Streams of Silver, Gauntlgrym adds a fresh twist and a new element of danger and conflict.  This isn't the book to start with for those jumping into The Legend of Drizzt (Homeland or The Crystal Shard is the way to go) but this is a book for those that enjoy the deep fantasy setting and are already acquainted with the characters.  With a fast-forwarding of time only possible in a book with protagonists known to live for hundreds of years, ties are cut from past generations and rather than an awkward transition coming out of the tearful ending of Salvatore's previous novel The Ghost King, Gauntlgrym is able to start on a rather clean slate.

I both loved and hated this setup for the book.  On the one hand, I enjoyed that Salvatore was turning over a new leaf and embarking on a new phase of the Drizzt saga.  However, the way that time was jumped in the book provided a shaky start to the story.  Salvatore has always been an expert at writing emotion for his main characters so beginning the tale with old grief and buried scars rather than nursing raw wounds seemed an odd choice.  Once the time frame of the adventure was settled into, the narrative took shape into what every Salvatore fan expects - sweeping battle scenes, grand adventures, and inner character conflict leading to growth.  Dahlia was a fascinating new companion to the saga as well.  Her story composed some of the most dramatic segments of the novel and with aspects of both heroine and villain within her character she promises to be an intriguing addition to future books in the series. Overall, this may not be Salvatore's greatest book, but it's still highly engaging and entertaining - and definitely a must read for those that love his style and his heroes

"200 posts?!  So what do you want?  A medal?"  Well... yes, actually!

Do you ever stop and look back at something you did a year ago and ask yourself "What was I thinking?"  Maybe your moment of "WIT" was an ill-timed encounter with an angry petting zoo goat, or perhaps a cannon-ball jump into an outdoor pool (air temp 87, water temp 62), or maybe you started a book blog.

I don't remember exactly how or why I started this blog aside from the fact that my previous personal blog had gone rather stale and my general thoughts on life were becoming split between public enough to share on Facebook or private enough to be kept in my personal journal.  And yet my reading and reviewing habits were ever-blossoming.  LibraryThing and GoodReads became great tools for cataloging my books and connecting with reading friends; but neither really served my desire to discuss the books I read and other bookish topics with people as voraciously excited about reading as myself!  And so began Her Book Self.

200 posts later, I'm a little amazed at what this endeavor has turned into!  I started simple wanting to focus on book reviews, author interviews, and bookish quotes.  And then I discovered some memes to join in, hot topics to discuss, challenges to try, and of course the joy of giveaways!  Yet this blog would be nothing without the precious comments left behind as small bits of validation that I'm not just talking to myself.  Thank you to those that have read my random ramblings and cared enough to tell me just how silly I am that you appreciate my thoughts!

Happy 200 Posts and here's to many, many more!

As promised, it is my pleasure to introduce Eleanor Brown, author of The Weird Sisters, to all of you wonderful blog readers!  Along with being a fabulous writer, I found Ms. Brown  to be a friendly, intelligent and engaging person, and I hope everyone out there gets a chance to read her book!  Any author who can capture so perfectly the love of books that permeates a reading family, is incredibly welcome on Her Book Self!

*applause, applause*

Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get started as a writer?

I've always been a reader and a daydreamer, and at some point I figured out that I could write down all the stories I made up in my head, which was a great excuse for daydreaming even more! I wrote short pieces for a long time - essays and short stories, mostly - and then when I turned 30 I decided I wanted to take a crack at writing a novel. I wrote some really, really terrible novels in a number of different genres, and was about ready to give up, until I decided just to take a number of things I was trying to figure out and write a story about them, and that became The Weird Sisters.

How did the concept of The Weird Sisters develop?

I'd had an idea for a story about three sisters kicking around in the back of my mind for years, but I never really figured out how to make it happen. What I really wanted to explore through those sisters was birth order theory, the idea that where we are born in our family influences the people we become. As I wrote, I incorporated other things I was interested in or trying to figure out, like what it means to be an adult, and how families communicate, until I had a complex enough story to really call it a novel.

Did you have quotes from Shakespeare in mind to use for certain conversations in the book or did you look them up as you wrote the story? Or did you - like the Andreas family - pull them from memory?

I had a long list, culled from extensive research I had done before I started writing, of quotes I wanted to use. Most of those got tossed to the wind, however; I realized that I couldn't write a scene just to use a quote, and I wanted to limit the number of 'famous' quotes I used, because this is a family whose knowledge would extend beyond the ones anyone can name. So ultimately I ended up doing a lot of running back to my Complete Works and looking for something appropriate to the conversation. I wish I could quote extemporaneously like the Andreas family can!

As the youngest child in my family, I recognized certain attributes of Rose, Bean, and Cordy in myself and my two older sisters. To which of the three sisters do you most relate? Which one was the most fun and which the most challenging to write?

I'm so glad to hear you found them recognizable! I relate to all three of the sisters - part of writing about them was an attempt to try to reconcile the parts of me that are often at war - the little bit of me that wants independence versus the part that wants to be taken care of, or the part that wants adventure and drama with the part that desires safety.
Rose was the most difficult to write because it would have been easy to have her just come off as bossy and controlling. I wanted the caring, supportive aspects of her to be equally strong. I found Bean and Cordy easier - though their difficulties are of their own making, they also have positive qualities that were easier to tease out.

I found the voice in the book to be unique and refreshing. The "we" and "our" pulled me into the story and hooked me from the start. At what point in your writing did you decide to compose in the first-person plural form?

From the start! I'd tried to use the first-person plural voice before, but I didn't have the writing chops to pull it off yet - it's tricky. But the first line ("We came home because we were failures") came to me before I even started writing and the rest of the voice flowed from that. I'm glad to hear you liked it - I know for some people it will turn them off the book, but I felt it supported one of the points I was trying to make about the way we carry our families with us no matter how we feel about them, and I felt strongly enough about it to keep it there.

Along with being a book about family, friendship, and self-discovery, The Weird Sisters is about dealing with cancer and the effects of treatment on an individual as well as those around him/her. I work in cancer research and I was impressed with how accurately you chronicled this journey. What type of study went into this portion of the story?

I refer all compliments on accuracy to my wonderful experts - cancer survivors and oncology professionals, who were gracious enough to read early drafts and answer questions. My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was in high school (she is celebrating her 21st year as a survivor) and I have been trying to write out what that meant to her and my family ever since. It was difficult, because I knew I didn't want that storyline to be central, but I didn't want it to be an excuse, either. Nonetheless, the more I saw people around me fighting cancer, the more I knew I wanted to be part of the conversation about how it impacts families.

I loved that libraries played an important part in the book, too. Do you have a favorite library memory from your youth?

I have tons - libraries have been a lifelong sanctuary for me, and I owe so much to the librarians who placed books in my hands over the years and transformed my life in the process. My family vacationed in the mountains in Maryland, and the branch we visited there during the summers (the Ruth Enlow Library in Garrett County, MD) was where I discovered Edward Eager and E. Nesbit, among others. It's also the building on which the library in the book is modeled. I can still remember the way it smelled!

Shakespeare being the obvious one, what other authors would you say have inspired or influenced you?

My idols are varied - Pat Conroy and Alice Hoffman for their painfully beautiful writing, Maeve Binchy for her warm voice, Jodi Picoult for her complex plots. I really love contemporary fiction and think there are so many wonderful things happening; I'm just happy to be part of the conversation!

What projects are you currently working on?

I'm very superstitious about talking about works in progress, so I'll just say I'm working on another family story, this one centered more on love.

Where can we find more about you and your work?

Visit me on the web! I'm on Facebook (www.facebook.com/eleanorbrownwriter), Twitter (www.twitter.com/eleanorwrites) and I have a blog that I update far too infrequently at my site (www.eleanor-brown.com).

Thank you so much for your time and for writing your lovely book!

I don't often use this blog as a place to talk about my family, but along with being "the nerdy one", I'm also the "baby" among my siblings.  I talked a bit about my older brother and two older sisters and our reading habits in my last post, but what I didn't mention is that because of my closeness to my family, I love reading stories about families and especially about sibling relationships.  Last month I encountered a delightful work on this topic, The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown. 

With a renowned Shakespearean professor for a father, the Andreas sisters knew the Bard would have an influence on their lives - even their names Rosalind (Rose), Bianca (Bean), and Cordelia (Cordy) were inspired by famous works. Their bookish ways and habit for communicating via verse set the family apart and the three sisters have little in common outside of their sibling rivalries. However, when dire circumstances bring them together, the girls just might find that they are more alike than they, or their parents, ever realized.

The Weird Sisters is a story about family and friendship and the chance to let challenges pull people together rather than apart. The characterization of sisters - oldest, middle, and little - will be recognizable as realistic to those that grew up in similar situations. And this is also a book about the love of literature and is truly a book for book-lovers. Not only does the cast converse with each other in famous quotes, but there is an admiration of libraries and academia. The Andreas family is infused with a reading culture and bibliophiles reading the work will likely love seeing their passion mirrored by the characters.

Eleanor Brown created a fantastic novel in The Weird Sisters. The story is told in the highly unique voice of the first person plural as if all three Andreas sisters are telling the story together. Not only does this add a lovely unity to the various portions of the story which focuses on multiple characters, but the use of "we" and "our" pulls the reader fully into the narrative. By the end of the book the reader has become a silent fourth Andreas sibling and it is a testament to Brown's writing that turning the final pages was almost like saying farewell to family.

I have a hard time capturing how charmed I was by this book.  Without giving too much away, one of the plot points involves a character being diagnosed with cancer.  Although the big-C has never struck my immediate family, I'm no stranger to the challenges of supporting a loved one who is living with the illness and I was very impressed with the way that Ms. Brown narrated these struggles so realistically.  In fact, I was so impressed that I went so far as to contact Ms. Brown and thank her for such a wonderful book.  I'm thrilled to reveal that she not only responded to my gushing fan-girl note about her work but also agreed to an interview with me!

Check out The Weird Sisters (available now) and stay tuned this week for my interview with Eleanor Brown!