Brittany historical saga
- Book: Lady at the Lodge
- Location: Brittany
- Author: Graham Ley
Lady at the Lodge is an action-packed novel in a saga which is set in Brittany and also in Devon. It’s the story of a family divided between those two locations, with ancient manor houses featuring in both places. The novel is strong on atmosphere, not just of the times but of the places in which the action is set, with scenes that you can trace out on the ground. So it seems very suitable for this site: I am thinking of one scene in particular where there is a chase through the lanes of the historical town of Pontivy in the centre of Brittany, which takes in the churches and chapels and the chateau. There are also scenes in another of the historical old towns, Auray, and in the small port of St Goustan which is across the bridge from it, and completely charming to walk around. There is also as much detail on locations in the parts of the novel set in Devon, and in Hampstead and the east end of London by the River Thames, the old port for sailing ships, where the heroine is drugged and imprisoned until she is freed by clever and bold action on the part of her lover.
The date of the saga is in the 1790s when Britain is at war with France, and spying and its dangers are part of the plot. There is not much reference to the war in this book, but the characters include many in Brittany, some from the family’s manor of Kergohan and others from the towns, notably the house of a young woman called Josephine whose lover is a French army captain. Kergohan manor is in the countryside close to the town of Auray, and the picture of the old-fashioned way of life there involves scything the crops, cidermaking and breadmaking from sourdough. There is a very sympathetic Breton woman who has brought up an orphan named Gilles, who is frustrated because no one can tell him who his father was. In this novel Gilles falls in love with a girl from a French colony overseas who has been a slave, and also discovers his mother’s sister, who provides a piece of the puzzle for him.
The novel weaves together a number of stories, as you often get in a saga, and you may prefer to start at the beginning with the first, which is called The Baron Returns. Graham Ley has a Facebook page, and on that he says that the fourth and final part of the saga will be published later in the summer. I shall look forward to that.
Please wait...
