allure

Last night I wrote the first 2500 words of Tout Allure. One of the best things about writing Tout Sweet is the number of people who have emailed me to say how much they enjoyed the book and to ask about a sequel. They include old school friends as far away as Seattle, colleagues whom I’d lost touch with and editors whom I've worked for over the years, as well as people I haven’t met but would like to - ranging from TV producers in Dallas to eighty-year old-ladies in Majorca who dream of the green French countryside.

A surprisingly high percentage of the readers who contact me (given that I imagined Tout Sweet would mostly appeal to women) are male. They include Dick in Texas, who visits France every year with his wife and who has read over sixty living in France’ books, to the charming man in the Dordogne who wrote to say how much he admired my geraniums and my dress sense.

I’m always thrilled that people have taken the time to write - and even more thrilled if they have been kind enough to post a review on Amazon - as apart from anything else, it is not easy finding a copy of Tout Sweet. Invariably, it is hidden in bookshop basements, nearly always on the bottom shelf - the disadvantage of a surname that starts with ‘W’ - if stocked at all.

But c’est la vie. And as long as the lovely emails keep arriving, I can’t complain.