Last month I shared with you two books that were brand new, hot off the press. This time the whole series of books is out of print! I have however checked that actually that are all still available on line as second-hand copies. The advantage here being that they only cost a couple of pounds each. Just ensure you are looking at a UK seller.
So, what are these desirable books that are out of print, I hear you ask. They are a series of six books by Elizabeth Falconer all written in the 1990s. I have no memory of where and when I bought them and they certainly wouldn’t have made the bestsellers list but I have grown to love them and have read them through several times in the last twenty years. So last May, deep into the first lockdown, I decided I needed to curb my Amazon book buying habit and search my shelves. Thus I came upon these stories and spent a happy couple of weeks with them. At the time I didn’t want anything nasty; the world felt bad enough and these are gentle, although that is not a synonym for insipid.
Anna feels that her life living by the Thames in London is pretty sorted. She divides her time between her two teenage children, her work as a restorer and gilder and her summers in France. She knows that her marriage to Jeffrey is all but over but doesn’t realise quite how lonely she is until her brother Gio introduces her to a friend of his. Inevitably the course of true love does not run smoothly. And so we begin.
I am a lover of a trilogy and so when an author gets carried away and writes 6 connected books I am ecstatic. I end up sinking into this make-believe world such that the real, everyday domestic details of life appear to be the fiction. These stories inevitably stand alone, to keep the publishers happy but I found a particular joy in waiting for characters I already knew to appear in the next story. Elizabeth Falconer is adept at weaving the complicated lives of her characters together. And, particularly last year when all travel was experienced vicariously via screens or books, I simply revelled in the delightful settings and the intense feeling of place. We move from riverside views in Chiswick to the Marais area of Paris, of which I am fond and to rural vistas of southern France where I drank in the smell of lavender, the feel of the hot sun and the smell of fresh bread from the village boulangerie.
Unlike the nearly a dozen books by Susan Hill that I recommended to you a few months ago, there are no murders here, nothing horrendous happens behind a closed door but characters are drawn with a fine line, we get to know them, share in their pain and sigh at their unwise choices. If you are looking for some literary balm and still don’t feel confident in booking a summer holiday, then maybe these books are for you.
I have tried quite hard to find out a little about the author but have been unsuccessful. She may not still be alive. Whatever, I am grateful to her. Last summer won’t be the last time that I reread all six stories. I bought a second-hand copy of the first book: ‘The Golden Year,’ for my cousin in Rye who wasn’t sleeping well. I told her these books were quite safe to read at two in the morning and she is now on book four, having spread the earlier stories around other book reading ladies of Rye. I find that pleasing.
Elizabeth Falconer is a consummate storyteller and her writing is full of passion, love, dreams and duty. In essence, life. She writes optimistically about the power of the human spirit. It works well for me and I offer it to you.