Mary's Bookcase : Have a sneak-peek between the covers of The Sand Vines by Michèle Callard

The Sand Vines
By Michèle Callard

Publication Date: 1st May 2024

Publisher: Millefeuille Press

Page Length: 400 Pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

Bordeaux 1870 – Life is hard on the moor.

If Flore, a shepherd’s daughter, is not married by autumn, she must go into service and lose everything she holds dear.

Back form the French army, the dashing Ricar has set her heart and body on fire. Will he propose to her before it is too late?

Martial the viscount’s son adores Flore from afar. Aware that she can never be his. When a betrayal and a forest fire put Flore in danger, Martial seizes his chance, grabs her hand and takes her to safety far away in the north of France, hoping they might start afresh, but war looms. . .

Will it bring them together or tear them apart?

Excerpt

Will Ricar propose?

Flore pulled the bucket from the well and, water dripping on her feet, poured some into a jug, which she handed to Ricar. He drank thirstily and tipped the rest over his head.

‘Diou biban, have I just survived savage-infested jungles to work like a mule for the rest of my days?’ He grabbed the cloth she handed him and dried his face. ‘We’re slaving over his lordship’s wheat, and for what?’ He spat into the wheat and handed her back the cloth, wrapping his fingers over her hand.

A strange heat shot around Flore’s body. Tomorrow could not come soon enough. She was to meet him inside a snug hollow in the heart of the dunes: her grandfather’s sand vines.

With a wink, Ricar squeezed her hand and walked away, leaving the others to gather the last of the grain, fill wooden barrels and carry them inside the barn, ready to be weighed for tax.

Flore skipped home, honey flowing inside her. She pressed the cloth to her face and inhaled his smell, imagining his hands . . .

‘He seemed very friendly tonight.’ Aunt Onorina sat at the table outside the cottage, a basket of root vegetables in front of her.

‘Tanta, please, it’s not fair.’ Flore brushed the chaff from her apron. ‘I’ve hinted, but what can I do? It’s not the kind of thing a girl can ask.’ She absently reached above her, picked a grape from a bunch growing along their window frame and made a face. Not quite ripe.

‘Florette. Sit down and listen to me.’ Tanta tapped the bench next to her and placed a couple of knobbly turnips on the table.

Flore steeled herself for a lecture.

‘This time last year, your mother was still with us, and your papa—God rest his soul—cared for the viscount’s sheep.’ Onorina slammed her knife into a turnip and chopped it in two. ‘We’re running out of time. For a bright girl, you’ve behaved like a mooncalf since Ricar’s been home. You were set on the miller’s boy, weren’t you? What happened to that? The miller’s a free man. Don’t know why you turned him down.’

‘He tried to rape me!’

‘You made eyes at him. He was only taking what he thought was his right.’

Flore’s mouth fell open.

‘Remember one thing. We only live here because your father looked after the viscount’s flock. Now sheep aren’t worth a candle, we’ll be moved to a shack.’ Her left eye confronted Flore.

If not for a right eye too close to her nose, Tanta Onorina would have been a handsome woman. Her disfigurement had kept men away, which meant that the future of the family now rested on Flore’s shoulders.

Tanta now attacked a carrot and winced as the knife caught her finger. ‘Colin will be of age soon. If he draws a low number, or if some rich layabout pays him to take his place in the army, he’ll be gone for seven years.’ She sucked the blood from her finger. ‘Madame Clopin will want you as a maid. Augustine’s leaving to get married.’

A band of iron clamped around Flore’s chest. ‘She can’t force me to empty the pissadou she keeps under her bed! It’s not in our contract.’

‘It’s very much written between the lines.’ Tanta waved her knife. ‘We can’t refuse.’

‘She’s a vicious nag, and old Clopin gropes the girls.’

‘Yes, well, you should have thought of that when you turned down the miller’s son.’

‘If I’m to work as a maid,’ Flore asked in a small voice, ‘what will happen to Nanette?’

Her sister was feeding her geese, singing to them in her flat voice.

Aunt Onorina gathered the chopped vegetables and dropped them into a pan. ‘If Colin is called up and you’re in service, Nanette and I will remain on our own,’ Tanta’s voice wobbled, ‘they’ll move us to some shack if we’re lucky.’

Still singing, Nanette came in and sat next to Flore. Flore hugged her tightly, breathing in her smell of goose feathers.

They had never spent a night apart.

‘Tell you what,’ Flore nudged her sister, a huge lump in her throat, ‘why don’t we have a little game of skittles while dinner’s cooking?’

‘Kittles!’ Nanette clapped her hands.

The die was cast. Whatever Ricar wanted to do with her the next morning, Flore would agree to, but first he would have to promise marriage.

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Michèle Callard

Michèle Callard grew up in France. A country girl at heart, she swapped her Paris flat for a cottage in rural England where she lives with her Irish husband and the youngest of her three sons.

She writes fast-paced novels set in different regions of France, bursting with authentic characters, colours, flavours and history.

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