The joys of re-reading Mary Stewart

I love Mary Stewart’s romantic suspense novels: their sense of adventure and intriguing storylines, their strong-willed heroines, and most of all, their transporting settings. Her first, published in 1955, was Madam, Will You Talk?.

The narrative takes place around 1950, in a hot, dusty Provence where Roman ruins and stony, abandoned villages dominate the landscape. The Second World War still casts a shadow over the life of young widow Charity Selborne, whose husband lost his life flying RAF operations. On a summer motoring holiday through France with a friend and fellow teacher, Charity arrives at a small hotel in Avignon. Through Stewart’s lyrical descriptive prose, we feel her release and excitement at being in the balmy warmth of the south.

‘It was dusk when I set out, and the street was vividly lit. All the cafés were full, and I picked my way between the tables on the pavement, while there grew in me that slow sense of exhilaration which one inevitably gets in a Southern town after dark.’

This is the opening of a piece I've written for Perfectly Provence e-magazine. To read on, please hop over to Perfectly Provence on this link.

Provence: by the sea

 

The end of high summer in Provence means now is the time to set out for the beach. La Rentrée has seen off families with children who must return to school and soon the university students will be making for home too. Only the older or childless holidaymakers remain to share the sea and the sun with the locals.

 

Our preferred part of the coast stretches from Toulon to La Ciotat. Not the smartest on the French Riviera, but full of charm and the French themselves, which is always a recommendation. The photo shows Bandol, which has a line of beaches, each different in character. This is the seaward side of the sheltered Anse de Renecros, where the horseshoe bay is a perfect swimming lagoon.

 

 

There are plenty of cafés and restaurants serving fish and salads nicoises - and, of course, the famously good Bandol rosé wine is not to be missed.

 

I'm very fond of Sanary-sur-Mer, too, just along the coast towards Toulon. It has one of the prettiest seafront marinas and promenades of the whole of the south of France. Again, not conspicuously smart but friendly and relaxed, with plenty to do and see. 

 

 

And then there's lovely Cassis and La Ciotat, which looks so unpromising from a distance, with what seems to be an industrial zone where it butts up against the hills. The towering cranes turn out to be part of a yacht builders and chandlery and, again, it's a pretty town with good beaches.

 

 

If this has made you want to prolong summer with a spot of armchair travel to the sea, you might like 300 Days of Sun. You can find out more in this Q & A I wrote for Anne Bonny Book Reviews.