📖 Blog Tour ~ The Forgotten Maid by Jane Cable

 

I am thrilled to host a stop on the concluding day of this blog tour 

Sapere Books
3 November 2021

Cornish Echoes Mystery #1

My thanks to publisher for my copy of this book
and to Rachel's Random Resources for the invitation to the blog tour

Two centuries apart, two lonely women seek a place to call home…

Cornwall, England, 2015

Nomadic project manager Anna Pritchard has arrived in the village of Porthnevek to oversee the construction of a trendy new glamping site. But with many members of the local community strongly opposed to the development, she quickly finds herself ostracised and isolated.

Seeking to ease her loneliness, Anna begins volunteering at a nearby National Trust house in Trelissick, once owned by the aristocratic Daniell family. In her new role, Anna soon feels her attachment to both Porthnevek and Trelissick deepening. And as she spends more and more time steeped in local history, it seems that the past and the present are beginning to collide…

Belgium, 1815

After losing her brother in the Battle of Waterloo, French army seamstress Thérèse Ruguel is taken to London by war artist Thomas Chalmers, becoming his reluctant muse. But with Thomas’s mother unhappy with the arrangement, Thérèse is soon sent to Cornwall as a lady’s maid to Elizabeth Daniell, a kindly relative of the Chalmers family.

Able to speak only a little English — and with the other servants suspicious of her — Thérèse feels lost and alienated. And when she discovers her brother may still be alive, she must decide whether to continue with her new life in England, or brave the dangerous journey back to her homeland…

What became of Thérèse? Can Anna unearth the ghosts of the past?

And has Anna finally found where she belongs…?

📖 My thoughts..

From the very start of the novel I was engrossed in the story of Anna Pritchard who, newly arrived in Cornwall, has the task of supervising the construction of a development site which should bring growth and expansion to the area, but which only seems to have roused the wrath of the local people. In seeking a distraction, Anna volunteers, as a guide, at the nearby Trelissick House, a National trust property which still retains the echoes of its troubled past.

Moving seamlessly back and forwards in time, this imaginatively described dual time story also introduces us to, Thérèse Ruguel, a French refugee, who, in 1815, takes up the position of lady’s maid to Elizabeth Daniell. Living at Trelissick house with the Daniell family is something of an escape after the horrors of Waterloo, however, Thérèse brings her own troubles with her to England.

Dual timelines are notoriously tricky to get right but there's no such trouble with this beautifully written story. Both time elements blend seamlessly with neither one trying to outdo the other in terms of story content and impact. I was equally engrossed in Anna's struggle with the locals in the twenty-first century as I was I going back to experience Thérèse Ruguel's complicated life in the early part of the nineteenth century. 

The Forgotten Maid brings with it a true sense of history allowing the tiny streets of Cornwall to come to life in a very believable way and yet I was also equally at home in the present sipping a glass of local golden ale with Anna in The Tinners Arms. The story is intricately detailed, peopled with wonderful characters, some you'll grow to love, whilst there are definitely others you'll love to hate. However, what shines throughout the story is the natural rugged beauty of Cornwall and the way this talented author brings its evocative history to life.

The Forgotten Maid certainly gets this new Cornish Echoes Mysteries series off to wonderful start. 

About the Author

Jane Cable writes romance with a twist for Sapere Books, and The Forgotten Maid her first novel set in her adopted county of Cornwall. She is lucky enough to have been married to the love of her life for more than twenty-five years, and loves spending time outdoors, preferably close to the sea on the wild and rugged north Cornwall coast.

She also writes emotional women’s fiction as Eva Glyn, published by One More Chapter.

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Twitter @JaneCable

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Mini Blog Blitz ~ Endless Skies by Jane Cable

 

Delighted to host one of the stops on this Mini Blog Blitz

Sapere Books
July 2020

My thanks to the author, publisher and Rachel's random Resources for my copy of the book
and the invitation to this Mini Blog Blitz

After yet another disastrous love affair – this time with her married boss – Rachel Ward has been forced to leave her long-term position in Southampton for a temporary role as an Archaeology Lecturer at Lincoln University.

Rachel has sworn off men and is determined to spend her time away clearing her head and sorting her life out.

But when one of her students begins flirting with her, it seems she could be about to make the same mistakes again...

She distracts herself by taking on some freelance work for local property developer, Jonathan Daubney.

He introduces her to an old Second World War RAF base. And from her very first visit something about it gives Rachel chills…

As Rachel makes new friends and delves into local history, she is also forced to confront her own troubled past.

What did I think about it..

After a disastrous love affair, Rebecca Ward is advised to relocate from her home in Southampton, to take up a lecturer's post at the University of Lincoln. Once there she gets drawn into a mystery surrounding a proposed business project on a disused WW2 airbase. In Rachel's capacity as an archaeology specialist she is intrigued by what she discovers at the airbase and is soon determined to do all she can to unlock its secrets.

With her troubles behind her, Rachel begins to enjoy her life in Lincoln and makes some rather special friends, especially, Jem and his gorgeous dog, Toast, the rather handsome student, Ben, and lovely, Esther who lives in a local care home and who knows rather more about the WW2 airbase than at first appears. However, it is the charismatic business man, Jonathan Daubney, who comes play such an important part in Rachel's life. 

With echoes of the past seeping into the present there is a lovely sense of anticipation throughout the novel as we are left wondering just what Rachel will discover as she delves further into the history of the airbase and the secrets of those people, from the past, whose shadows seems to linger in the air. 

Beautifully written, as I knew it would be, as this author can always be relied upon to tell a good story. Endless Skies has all the right ingredients for an engrossing read, there's a smattering of intrigue, a hint of danger and a delicious sense of romance. The characters fairly zing with life, the setting is entirely authentic and, whether in the past, or the present, there is always a strong, and totally believable, sense of time and place. 

In these troubled times, escaping into a good story is my comfort and for the past few days I have been truly comforted by reading this lovely story about friendship, betrayal, intrigue and ultimately, love.

About the Author

I write romance with a twist, that extra something to keep readers guessing right to the end. While my books are character driven my inspiration is always a British setting; so far a village in Yorkshire(The Cheesemaker’s House), a Hampshire wood (The Faerie Tree), gorgeous Studland Bay in Dorset(Another You) and rural Lincolnshire (Endless Skies). 

I was born and raised in Cardiff but spent most of my adult life living near Chichester before my husband and I upped sticks and moved to Cornwall three years ago.I published my first two novels independently and have now been signed by Sapere Books. I am an active member of the Romantic Novelists' Association and contributing editor to Frost online magazine

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Twitter @JaneCable #Endless Skies

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Blog Tour ~ Another You by Jane Cable

Delighted to be involved in the blog tour for this lovely dual time story

Sapere Books
27 June 2019

My thanks to the author and publisher for my invitation to be part of this blog tour

I'm delighted to be able to share this exclusive book extract from Another You 

I am about to turn on the shower when I hear it. Distant at first, almost thunder — but with a definite pulse. I throw open the bathroom window and look to the skies: heavy, low and revealing nothing.

Studland Bay is shrouded in early morning mist, still and silent over the sea. The dampness clings to the folded umbrellas in the pub garden, staining the fabric with dark streaks. With the habit born of years I listen for the sea, but all I can hear is thrum, thrum, thrum from above.

The sea is beyond the garden. Figures move along the shoreline, somehow lacking the randomness of dog walkers. Something unfamiliar jars. Thrum, thrum, thrum.

The mist makes Studland a strange, enclosed world. On a clear day I can see the cliffs to my right rise to meet the sky at Old Harry rocks, a wall of chalk which dazzles in the sunlight before plummeting into the surf. Now it is as though there is nothing there. I shiver and wrap my towel more closely around me.

As the thrumming fades into the distance my attention is caught by a jeep bumping over the field in the direction of Fort Henry, its concrete mass just visible between the trees to my left. Two men jump out and call to each other, their words indistinct on the breeze. That’s it — I remember now — the re-enactment.

Music from Jude’s radio alarm reaches me through the wall. Time I was getting on, but a movement in the bay catches my eye. The mist is breaking a little, wisps like candyfloss spiralling past the window. The prevailing wind has changed but there is something else… I sniff the air. The merest hint of cordite.

Shapes shift beyond the thinning curtain: huge, beige, intangible. I lean out further. The men from the jeep are dragging a wooden crate towards the fort. Gears grind in the lane as an army truck negotiates the bend at the bottom of the cliff path. It stops in the dip and soldiers stream out, disappearing down the gully to the beach.

The wind is an unfamiliar visitor to the bay but this morning it sweeps in from the east with a vengeance, whipping the water into angry furrows and peaks. The shapes in the sea edge into view, pitching and tossing in the swell. I can only count three of them, but something makes me think there are more beyond. I strain my eyes — what in heaven’s name are they?

There is a tap on the bathroom door. “Just putting the kettle on, Mum. Want some toast?”

“Please.” I shake myself and turn on the shower.

But still I am drawn to the window and the sea, gunmetal grey as the shapes emerge from the mist. Steam fills the room behind me as they appear then disappear, never quite reaching the shore.

Jude has the Bournemouth Echo spread out in front of him on the kitchen table. I pause at the bottom of the stairs — he’s so like his father was when I first met him: tall, blue-eyed and with a smile to melt hearts at fifty paces. All he’s inherited from me is my coppery-blonde hair.

“Morning, Mum. Just checking the timings for today.”

“The re-enactment?”

“No, that’s in a couple of weeks — today’s the memorial service for the tank crews.”

I sit down next to him and pour myself a mug of tea from the pot. “Are you sure? It’s crawling with soldiers out there.”

His finger moves across the paper. “Well, there is a bit of historical stuff going on; Bovington Museum’s bringing down a tank to drive ashore from a carrier and there’ll be an old plane flying over to drop some poppies.”

I lean towards him so I can read over his shoulder. It’s a big day for Studland; exactly sixty years ago the village stood silent witness to the first of a string of rehearsals for D-Day, which went horribly wrong when the amphibious tanks that were meant to float didn’t. The army picked the Studland peninsular because the terrain, with cliffs at one end and sand dunes at the other, was similar to Normandy. And it was secret; the paper says during the war it was almost completely cut off from the world.

Exercise Smash was so hush-hush it’s only recently that anyone’s heard about it and today a memorial to the men who died will be unveiled. The editorial proclaims that without their sacrifice the story of D-Day might have been very different, but I bet their families didn’t think so. There’s an interview with the last remaining widow, who says they were told nothing in 1944 and just accepted it. Stiff upper lips and all that. What a time to live.

Jude stands up and stretches. “I’d best go prep the bar. It was busy last night, and if we’re opening for coffee we’ll need stacks of cups and saucers.”

“What time’s your father coming in?”

He rolls his eyes. “Who knows? Said he had a date last night, remember?”

Nothing new there.

As Jude clatters down the stairs to the pub the feeling washes over me. Drab, familiar, bleak as the misty dawn. How the hell did the six inches of cold sheet between Stephen and me stretch until it became three miles of chalk headland? And would I change it? No. Not now, anyway.

Jude was conceived in this grey prison of a place, long before the mullions grew bars. Upstairs, on the lumpy mattress of Uncle Ted’s spare bed, before we knew it would become our future. Even before we knew we had one. We curled together under the blankets, star-struck by the novelty of a whole weekend together, oblivious to the fact I’d forgotten my pills.

In the morning we walked along the beach, barefoot, my skirt trailing in the sand. Behind the tide, with salt and a bucket we pulled up razor clams. I cooked them for supper, with pork, wine and garlic. Uncle Ted said I should be running the kitchen in his pub. Oh, how we laughed at the idea.

I’ll never forget waking here for the first time. We arrived in the dark, not long before closing time. Smoke filled The Smugglers’ public bar and Stephen’s Uncle Ted, a narrow whippet of a man, was polishing glasses behind it. He grasped my hand.

“Welcome to Studland, Marie.” His voice was gentle, his smile slow. I miss him to this day.

©Jane Cable

About the Author

Although brought up in Cardiff, Jane Cable now lives in Cornwall and is a full time writer. Another You is a moving saga of family life in the 21st century which draws on the horrors of combat, both in modern times and World War Two as down-trodden Marie fights to reclaim her identity and discover what really matters to her. Jane’s next book, Winter Skies, will be available for pre-order from Sapere Books soon.

Twitter @JaneCable #AnotherYou

@SapereBooks

More about the author can be found on her website by clicking here  or on Facebook by clicking here