Angela Wren – Messandrierre

I’d like to welcome author Angela Wren to my blog. She’s going to tell us more about her writing and why she loves France as the setting to many of her books, particularly her well-received crime novel, Messandrierre.

Having spent most of my life to date travelling and spending time in France I’m now at a point where I find myself re-visiting old haunts or exploring places I’ve just driven through in the past.  But one thing that never changes is the camping experience.  There is always something to laugh about, cry about or be shocked by.  And most of these experiences – and yes they are all mine – are the starting points for my James et Moi stories which feature every other week on my blog.  Next month I’m starting a series of stories that are all based on things found in showers.  And that’s got you thinking already hasn’t?  Later in the year there will be a whole series of stories dedicated to my abject and total failure to handle things electrical or mechanical.  Naturally, it has taken me a lifetime of study to perfect this.  I mention this so that you will understand that in writing my James et Moi stories I am speaking not just from personal experience but also with the gravitas that comes with lengthy and detailed research!

Short pieces of comic and amusing fiction are one thing, but my time in France has also provided me with a wealth of material for much longer works.  Couple that with a scrap of an understanding for putting words together and I found I had my first novel in a series of four even though I only set out to write one.  And that story is Messandrierre, set in the Cévennes – a rugged and sometimes wild area that’s sparsely populated and covered with vast forests – and featuring Jacques Forêt.  When I thought about my setting, a rural village nestled in the shadow of Monts Aigoual and Goulet; I knew the story had to be a murder mystery.  Using a real village that I know very well as my model, I took some time to completely people it with characters – well you never know when you might need someone to be a killer or a victim!  Then I moved the chateau, added a tiny gendarmerie, felled a few trees that obscured the view from my heroine’s hunting chalet and then began the serious task of putting the words on paper.

I hope you will enjoy my story if you decide to read it.  You can find it by following the links below :

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Smashwords

Website : www.angelawren.co.uk

Blog : www.jamesetmoi.blogspot.com

Facebook : Angela Wren

Goodreads : Angela Wren