Cornflower Books

A green thought in a green shade

    I was interested to see that the King’s Coronation invitation - a wonderfully fresh and floriferous design by Andrew Jamieson - incorporated a Green Man. A face peering through a wreath of leaves or sprouting vines or branches is commonly found in churches, and thought to represent spring, regeneration, rebirth, revitalising energy, and connection to nature, among other things.

    The working title of my novel The Tapestry Garden / Mrs Eloises zauberhafter Garten was The Green Man as his symbolism reflects elements of the plot, and various foliate headed iterations of the archetype act as a running motif through the story.

    Pictured here is my own Green Man, a little more stern than Andrew Jamieson’s perhaps, but most definitely benign!

Words in pictures

    I've been having fun making a Pinterest board with images which I think give a flavour of my novel The Tapestry Garden (Mrs. Eloises zauberhafter Garten). The pictures are either direct inspiration for elements of the book or are somehow representative of its locations, characters and period setting. 

    Above is Asthall Manor, once home to the Mitfords, very much what I had in mind for Eloise's house, Priors Ford, in the Cotswolds village of Winterborne Parva.

A big day

    My novel is published in Germany today.

    It's a gentle, nostalgic story set in 1936, featuring the foremost children's author of her day, and the restoration of a garden. It's about hidden beauty, second chances, and finding your voice, and I hope it gives as much pleasure to readers as the writing of it gave to its author!

In the garden ...

    "... that second week the poet's eyed narcissus disappeared out of the long grass at the edge of the zigzag path, and wild gladiolus, slender and rose-coloured, came in their stead, white pinks bloomed in the borders, filling the whole place with their smoky-sweet smell, and a bush nobody had noticed burst into glory and fragrance, and it was a purple lilac bush. Such a jumble of spring and summer was not to be believed in, except by those who dwelt in those gardens. Everything seemed to be out together, all the things crowded into one month which in England are spread penuriously over six. Even primroses were found one day by Mrs. Wilkins in a cold corner up in the hills; and when she brought them down to the geraniums and heliotrope of San Salvatore they looked quite shy."

    From The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

The Walter Scott Prize: the shortlist

    Here is the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction:

    These Days by Lucy Caldwell

    The Geometer Lobachevsky by Adrian Duncan

    Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris

    The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry

    The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane

    Ancestry by Simon Mawer

    I Am Not Your Eve by Devika Ponnambalam

Details of all the books can be found on the longlist.

Wisteria and sunshine

    After swithering a bit over what to read next, I eventually plumped for an old favourite - Elizabeth von Arnim's The Enchanted April.

    If you're not familiar with it I urge you to find a copy and read it before the month is out. As you'll see from this post, it's a real delight!