The Tapestry of Love

I am currently reading Rosy Thornton's The Tapestry of Love and it's very good. Catherine decides to go and live in France. Why isn't really made clear - or it hasn't been so far and I'm two thirds the way through it. She finds it very easy to fit in with her neighbours in the tiny village she moves to - partly because she does speak French. She sets up a business making soft furnishings and upholstering furniture as well as designing and stitching tapestries and is asked to repair a ceremonial banner for the church. This is a gentle story about people and their surroundings and nature. Just the sort of book to read in a deck chair on a hot summer's day - with or without - a bottle of wine. Lovely cover design too.

The Matchmaker of Perigord

Julia Stuart's The Matchmaker of Perigord is a tale of a small village in the South West of France called Amour-sur-Belle. It is so ugly even the English will not buy property there and it only has 33 inhabitants. Guillaume Ladoucette is the barber but he has few customers as many of the villagers are going bald. He decides to open a matchmaking business instead as he knows a lot of the villagers are looking for love.

The story which follows is fast paced and whimsical and includes many luscious descriptions of food as well as plenty of eccentric characters and local feuds. How the villagers find happiness and outwit the council when it forces a public shower on them because they're using too much water having baths is amusing reading. I don't think it is perhaps as good as the same author's Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo but it is still worth reading.