The Tapestry of Love by Rosy Thornton

Imagine life in a rural French countryside, in a place that is greatly remote, has a scarce population, in fact barely a few souls in the neighbourhood. And what it might be like if you are not a native of that place. That is what Rosy Thornton has given a picture of in her book, The Tapestry of Love. It is about Catherine Parkstone, who is seeking an idyllic life in a small hamlet in the Cevennes mountain in the French country side.

Catherine is divorced for the past few years and has has come in terms with it. She has two grown up kids, Tom and Lexie, whom she loves and adores. At the age of 49, Catherine wants to make a fresh beginning in her life. She sells her house in England and moves to a small house in Cevennes. She has great skills in tapestry work and wants to set up a small business as a seamstress to earn a living.

Slowly Catherine, adjusts to the place, gets acquainted with the neighbours, gets accustomed with the weather and sinks into the lifestyle of the place. She befriends her neighbours and has cordial relationships with all of them  and  gradually, they too develop a liking towards her. But, she is very intrigued by one of her neighbours, Patrick Castagnol because of his reserve nature, part English name and fluent French. Equations of relationships between them changes when Bryony, Catherine’s younger sister visits her. She is smitten by Patrick's charm, leaving Catherine feeling decidedly uncomfortable. Catherine also faces challenges against setting up her business from the French bureaucracy and she has a hard time dealing with all the paper work.

This book is about the little things of every day life. Rosy has drawn the poignancy of ordinary life. I just loved how she has portrayed a spectrum of relationships in various lights and shades. I also loved the way Rosy has given intricate details of the tapestries which Catherine creates. The description of the place is so vivid that one imagine the pictures of the location in their minds and the readers are gradually absorbed in the slow paced and relaxed life of the countryside. I found the book very relaxed, warm and quiet. In fact, I needed one like this after reading 'The Lovers'.

Take this book, lie down and immerse yourself in reading it and let the magic of the book work on you. One of the best contemporary women literature of modern time. I picked this book after reading Lindy's review and I am glad I did. I will definitely recommend reading it to someone looking for a relaxed and soothing read.

Wordless Wednesday - Tulips 2

# 4 Teaser Tuesday

Today's Teaser comes from the book, Miss Concieved by Emma Hannigan.

'But, as they sat in the taxi on the way home, Serena's pleasent buzz had evaporated and she realised that no matter how much she drank that night, she could not fully shake the feeling inside. Drink was kind of her friend.' 
Page: 64

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Share the title & author, too, so that others can add the book to their TBR Lists!

Please leave a comment with the link to your own Teaser Tuesdays, so that I can check them too! Thanks.

Egg less Almond and Cherry Cake

I love baking and keep experimenting new recipes. But, the main constraint is my baking experiments is that I do not use eggs. Now, that is a vital ingredient in baking. So, I am always in the search of eggless recipes and sometimes try my own ideas to create some. 

One of the basic recipes of making an egg less sponge cake is using sweetened condensed milk (Hopefully, I will post it sometimes in near future). In India, it is a very common recipe in every vegetarian household. I have tweaked that recipe to come with this Egg less Almond and Cherry Cake.

Most of the time my DH and my friends are the scapegoat to taste my experiments. I had made this one for a tea party at one of my friends place. It tasted good and my friends liked it. Coming to the recipe now:

Almond and Cherry Cake:
(Click here for the printable version)
Ingredients:

1 cup AP Flour.
1/4 cup ground almond powder.
1/2 cup glace cherries.
1 tsp baking powder.
1/2 tsp baking soda.
1/4 cup butter.
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp condensed milk.
2 tbsp flaked almonds for garnishing.
About 1/2 cup milk (more or less)

Process:

1. Grease a 1 lb loaf tin or an 8" rouns cake tin and flour it.

2. Shift flour, almond powder, baking powder and baking soda 2-3 times so that the mixture is uniform.

3. Wash the glace cherries and wash off any syrup sticking to it. Pat them dry.

4. In a separate large bowl cream the butter and condensed milk, till it is well mixed and the mixture is light and creamy.

5. Add the dry mixture to the creamed butter and condensed milk mixture, mixing all the time. Add the milk little by little to get a dropping consistency batter.

6. Fold in the washed and dried glace cherries and spoon the mixture into the prepared tin. Sprinkle the flaked almonds over it.

7. Bake it at 180 C for 25 minutes and then lower the tempreture to 165 C and bake for another for 10 minutes, till the top is light golden and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

8. Cool it in the tin before taking it out on a wire rack. Cool completly on a wire rack before slicing.
9. Slice and serve. Enjoy!

Notes:

1. If you do not have almond powder, try using equal amount almond puree ( almonds, soaked, blanched and pureed). Beat it into the creamed condensed milk and butter and proceed.
2. The almond flavour in this cake is mild, for a stronger flavour try adding 1/2 tsp almond extract (not essence as it has a very fake flavour).

Linking it to Champa's Bake Off.

The Lovers by John Connolly

This is the first book of John Connolly I have read. I had done a Teaser Tuesday from this book a couple of weeks back and a review was long due. I had picked it up from the library after seeing it short listed in Bord Gais Energy, Irish Book Awards Books of the decade. It is a crime thriller novel with the story revolving around the protagonist, Charlie Parker. In fact it is the seventh of the Charlie Parker series & the ninth book to feature this character. Since, I haven't read any other book from the series, I was really not sure what to expect from the book. The title of the novel might be misleading if you are looking for a romantic thriller as it is not one. It is a altogether dark crime thriller and it is only towards the end of the novel, one will understand why the novel is named so. That adds to the charm of the novel as it keeps you thinking about it till the end.

The story starts with Charlie Parker who is a private investigator but has lost his PI license and is under the scrutiny of the police. So, he takes up a job in a Portland Bar to earn a living while his lawyers are seeing that his license is restored to him soon. Charlie Parker has a disturbed past with his wife and daughter killed by a serial killer. And also, he has questions related to his childhood that need to be answered. This enforced break from his investigation work makes him look back to his own past and inquiry into the death of his father, who took his own life after apparently shooting two unarmed teenagers. In the quest of finding answers to these long buried unanswered question, Parker comes to know about some seriously disturbing truth about his own lineage.

There are other plots in the novel which goes on simultaneously. There is a young boy who has been found dead in mysterious conditions. Her ex girl friend Emily Kindler suspects it has been killed by someone who has been haunting her from a long time. She tries to flee from this unforeseen threat. There is Mickey Wallace, a journalist turned writer who write true crime stories. He decides to write a biography of Charlie Parker and the various events surrounding his life since the death of his wife and child. And there are other forces too, two supernatural figures : a man and a woman who seem driven to bring an end to Charlie Parker's life. There are both first and third person narration in the book. Charlie Parker tells his own story while other plots continue in third person narration. It is only towards the end the reader comes to know the interconnection of the plots and that works for the story  as it builds up the suspense.

Connolly writing style is very fluid and he has a good grip on the story. He has very deftly depicted the anguish of Parker as he struggles to find answers to the darkest secrets about his own origins.The story reveals itself in bits and pieces and the supernatural elements adds a new dimension to the story. However, those elements are not fully revealed in the story and I am eager to discover them in the next sequel. There is a haunted feeling throughout the novel and a tinge of trauma and tragedy too. That is because the novel starts with a murder, the protagonist has a disturbed past and there are some disturbing incidents taking place through out the novel. But all questions about Charlie Parker are not answered in the end and to know about the future one is lured  to read the next novel in the series from Connolly. This is not the genre I read usually. So, it was a welcome change and I am sure to pick up the next novel in the series, "The Whisperers".

If you like crime thriller, you will like it.