The Signare of Gorée - my new historical mystery

Suddenly it is almost 2023 and you awake with a new historical mystery in the works.

Why not, you think. Why did I not think of it before? I'll return to the place of my birth, in a different time. 

Senegal, you fill my thoughts. I am loving the research and the return to the familiar.

I have called this novel The Signare of Gorée. 

The setting is the 1840s on the French colonial island of Gorée and detective Maurice Leroux is a touch younger than he was in my gothic novel, Calista.

Summoned by the French navy to investigate a series of horrific murders, Maurice is soon haunted by the strange deaths on the island. 

One...by one...

The undeserving must die.

Calista : A reading by Laura Rahme

I will never be the sort of author that is fond of face to face interviews, writer panels or even book signings. 

The discomfort, exhaustion and overwhelm that I experienced at my own wedding in 2015, despite every intention to have fun, and in spite of the bliss I felt, signal to me that unfortunately, I have a low treshold for public attention, and that as you would expect from someone who is neurologically hypersensitive, writing is my preferred medium.

But even if I might be reluctant to conduct public readings of my novels, I can thankfully capture my own voice in the privacy of my home.

I recorded this reading last year and thought it might make a decent clip to promote my novel, Calista.

This is not my every day tone but it suits the historical setting at least. I hope you enjoy. 

Using Canva to create my book trailers

I had worked with the brilliant tool Canva since 2017, albeit in a professional setting where I was more a passive recipient of mockups lovingly realised by UX designers at my workplace.

After releasing The Secret of Chantilly in late November, then participating in the book’s promotion activities in December and surviving all the Christmas cooking, I decided I needed a purely visual and auditory project. I took on playing with Canva and was pleasantly surprised. What began as social media posters (that I deleted) and fun food menus themed around Christmas and High Tea, soon led to a joyful passion for book trailers. 

I completed two book trailers in late January after upgrading to Canva Pro. One for Calista and one for The Ming Storytellers. I also had loads of fun with a Secret of Chantilly promo to coincide with Talleyrand’s birthday. I’ll eventually work on a trailer for my other books. 

My favorite part of the process was choosing imagery that evoked themes and symbols in my stories — a very rewarding semiotic exercise —  then applying various royalty free sound pieces to set the mood. I also had to avoid modern imagery as my novels are set in the past, and choose video content over photos where possible to avoid that “presentation slide” feel which is not what I wanted.  For the sound in the Calista trailer, I added thunderstorm, ocean and cricket effects and had fun with jarring and downright spooky horror pieces. The addition of sound made me realise just how crucial to the emotional effect sound mixing is and my respect for that discipline of filmmaking has increased like never before. The result is an unsettling little video that captures the contrast in Calista’s life before and after moving to England and creates intrigue. It won’t win an Oscar but I’m very happy. :)

For the Chantilly promo video, my aim was not to convey what the book is about but rather to showcase the essence of my characters : nimble, hardworking chef Carême affairing himself in the Château de Valençay kitchen, and his tasteful and regal master, Talleyrand. All the Valençay photos are my own, taken during a trip to Indre in July 2020 while I was editing the French version of the novel. I also used music that would have been familiar to Talleyrand in his time, so the first piece for example which accompanies Carême’s cooking, is by Mozart, and it worked wonders when I adjusted the pace of the imagery and used lots of dynamics like confetti, butterfly wings, and hand gestures. The cartoonish imagery is befitting because the novel possesses  a fairytale like quality, and these childish finishes also add an element of fun to what is, after all, a birthday celebration video. 

Giveaway ! 📚
How about a trip to the @ChateauValencay for #Talleyrand’s birthday? 🥳 I hear French chef Antonin Carême is cooking up a storm.

If you enjoy foodie historical fiction with heart, The Secret of Chantilly is currently free on Kindle. 🎁♥️ https://t.co/tpWhJXVGTb pic.twitter.com/7zHDcNDAax

— Laura Rahme (@Laura_Rahme) February 1, 2022

The Ming Storytellers book trailer is my greatest joy. It has by far the prettiest music, a melody that wonderfully tugs at the heartstrings while spelling mystery and awe. I remember sighing wishfully years ago, telling myself that I needed a book trailer for my epic story, but I never had the time nor the resources for it, and now, ten years after its release, it finally has one! Thank you Canva!  

Review: Jane and the Year Without a Summer by Stephanie Barron

Stephanie Barron is a prolific author with a CIA career background who has penned a series of mysteries with Jane Austen as lead sleuth and narrator. Currently in love with all things Georgian, I found this titillating, and while I’m admittedly late to the Jane Austen tea party - there are 14 books now - I am no less enthusiastic than early adopters, ever since having read my first cosy mystery featuring the renowned 19th century author as main character.

In the splendidly titled, Jane and the Year Without a Summer, Jane Austen travels to Cheltenham in May 1816 with her sister Cassandra upon advice of her doctor. It is hoped the iron-rich spa waters will invigorate her.

The Royal Well Spa, Cheltenham by Robert Cruickshank, published in The English Spy 1826

(Image courtesy of antiqueprints.com)

As they settle into their lodgings at Mrs Potter’s, we meet an eccentric cast of characters. Miss Rose Williams is a wheelchair-bound sylphlike young heiress. Her childhood friend and companion, Sarah Fox exerts a Wollstonecraft-ian feminist influence on her.  Elegant Hannah Smith is a free-spirited actress with a secret shame who manages to outrage a moralistic Miss Garthwaite more than once, lending some spice to the dialogue.  The reverend in Miss Garthwaite’s brother, James is inclined to sermonising at length uttering his, "Repent!" to all who would hear. In his eyes, the current sunless year can only spell doom:

“Are you aware—or as yet ignorant of the intelligence—that the warmth of the sun has been wrapped in a veil; that no man may say when it shall be torn asunder; and that perpetual winter shall wither crops in the fields, bringing desolation upon the multitude?”

As it turns out, much more than the historical climatic gloom is forthcoming.

But it wouldn’t be a Jane Austen story without a dash of romantic excitement for the author. So who should happen to also be visiting Cheltenham but her love interest, Raphael West? The younger women on the other hand, married or not, seem to be taken by the limping Captain Harry Pellew.

Faithful to the format of an Agatha Christie novel, simmering tensions are revealed between several characters, laying down suspicions and motivations for what is to come. The unexpected arrival of Miss Williams’ husband, alongside a beautiful and mysterious woman, sends the fragile Rose Williams into a frenzy of hysterics.  Spendthrift Viscount Portreath is adamant that his wife should return home at once. Captain Pellew is not alone in his negative reaction to this. Sarah Fox wishes her friend, Rose to flee from her husband. A certain Dr Lionel Hargate who turns out as patronising as they get (especially with his dealings with our Jane), intervenes promptly against Miss Williams travelling, even while Sarah Fox insists her life is in danger.

It’s not long before we begin to suspect Lady Portreath‘s life might indeed be under threat. But there are more happenings brooding under the surface and it is just as well Jane Austen proves so insightful. 

How about some poisoned macaroons with your tea?

A relaxing stay that ought to have consisted of sensible attendances to the theatre and visits to the Cheltenham library, unfolds with unexpected twists. A tea party with a case of poisoned macaroons, a disturbing pattern of dead rats, a tragic costume ball, anorexic behaviour in a distressed young woman, violent jealousy, and more fervent preaching about the apocalypse - there is much to entertain and transport as the suspense culminates into not one, but two vicious cold-blooded murders. 

Luckily by this time, Miss Austen has brilliantly pieced together enough about her companions’ behaviour to solve the case in style.

This was an enjoyable historical cosy mystery even without the detective’s author credentials. I happily lost myself in the intrigue, while also exploring a bygone Cheltenham, and gasping at the rudeness of Miss Garthwaite’s classist remarks. A brilliant, entertaining story with vivid characters.

I haven’t opened a Jane Austen book in a long time so I admit that the language, faithful to her own, took a bit to get used to but twenty pages in, and I was delighted with its stile (style) and its spelling variations - I had somehow forgotten that one could chuse (choose) to spell panic as panick, and gothic as gothick. But setting aside my own ignorance, this deliberate adherence to Jane Austen’s form of expression is what made the text so transporting.

There are some delightful descriptions, as when we first meet Lady Portreath aka Miss Rose Williams :

"Flawless skin, tho’ too wan and pallid; shadowed eyes of cornflower blue; guinea-gold curls trailing from a deliciously upturned poke bonnet, a frail figure handsomely gowned—and yet all confined to the basket-chair of an invalid’s conveyance. There was a thinness, a languor, that spoke of suffering gallantly borne. Such a picture, eloquent of Divine gifts and burdens equally bestowed, must inspire the most sympathetic concern!"

With such evocative prose, I am in no doubt that a TV series producer will one day want to adapt Stephanie Barron’s Jane Austen mysteries. 

I leave you with one last charming quote from Raphael West :

“Where are you ladies bound? May I cajole you to visit the Cheltenham Library? I mean to peruse the London papers; I have ruralised in ignorance long enough.”

Many thanks to Soho Crime from Soho Press for providing me with an ARC of this novel. 

Jane and the Year Without a Summer is out on 8 February 2022.