Or rather... one angel, really... more of a talisman, actually. Oh, I'll hush now and let you check it out for yourself...
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Spirit of Lost Angels
by Liza Perrat
Paperback, 378 pages
Published June 2nd 2012 by Perrat Publishing
Her mother executed for witchcraft, her father dead at the hand of a noble, Victoire Charpentier vows to rise above her poor peasant roots.
Forced to leave her village of Lucie-sur-Vionne for domestic work in Paris, Victoire suffers gruesome abuse under the ancien régime. Can she muster the bravery and skill to join the revolutionary force gripping France, and overthrow the corrupt, diabolical aristocracy?
Spirit of Lost Angels traces the journey of a bone angel talisman passed down through generations. The women of L’Auberge des Anges face tragedy and betrayal in a world where their gift can be their curse.
Amidst the tumult of revolutionary France, this is a story of courage, hope and love.
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Please welcome Liza Perrat to Colorimetry to talk about her book!!
What kind
of research did you do for Spirit of Lost Angels?
A lot. Before I wrote the novel, I knew nothing
about the French Revolution, or the 18th century. I read everything
about the period I could get my hands on: fiction and non-fiction. The best
part was watching all those revolution-related movies; relaxation and
entertainment under the guise of research! Pre-revolutionary France was a time of great turmoil
at all levels of society, as people were, finally, questioning the old regime.
I wanted to explore what led the people to revolt, and how this affected the
mass of the population: the peasants and the poverty-stricken. More
particularly, I hoped to show how women were affected by this conflict; how
they reacted, struggled and fought, and how they evolved in the face of such
great upheaval.
Do you
have a favorite scene?
My favourite scene, or rather scenes, would have
to be in La Salpêtrière asylum of Paris. I was fascinated, and appalled by the
conditions under which the women were imprisoned, and the rules women had to
learn to survive. Located in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, it
was known as a cruel and harsh place to which people suffering from “mental”
problems were sent … as well as other “conditions” such as beggars,
prostitutes, epileptics, orphans, Jews, drunks, witches, blind women,
adulteresses, magicians, bohemians and suicidals. The old, the young, the
children, all imprisoned together, sent there by husbands, doctors, neighbours…
I have written a post about La Salpêtrière on my
blog:
Can you
share more of how you met your husband in Bangkok?
I’d been working as a
midwife in Sydney, and was on my way to a 12-month midwifery job in Saudi
Arabia, a fairly fashionable thing to do for Australians in the late 80s. I’d
planned a month in Thailand, 3 months trekking in Nepal, then a month in India,
before arriving in Saudi Arabia. Meeting a man was the furthest thing from my
mind. On my first day in Bangkok, I caught an overnight bus south, and sat next
to two young French lads. I knew not a word of French, and one of them couldn’t
speak English, so we “conversed” via his friend, who had some English. We spent
a wonderful month in Thailand together and, as I headed off for Nepal, he asked
me to come to France. We got married a year later and, twenty-four years on,
I’ve still never taken that job in Saudi Arabia.
Ha! How fun!! Thank you for coming to visit... and sharing about your book and your life!
Thank you kindly,
Laura, for giving me this opportunity to feature on Colorimetry.
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Liza grew up in Wollongong, Australia,
where she worked as a general nurse and midwife for fifteen years.
When she met her French husband on a Bangkok bus, she moved to France, where she has been living with her husband and three children for twenty years. She works part-time as a French-English medical translator.
Since completing a Creative Writing course ten years ago, several of her short stories have won awards, notably the Writers Bureau annual competition of 2004 and her stories have been published widely in anthologies and small press magazines. Her articles on French culture and tradition have been published in international magazines such as France Magazine and France Today.
She is represented by Judith Murdoch of the Judith Murdoch Literary Agency and has completed four novels, and a short-story collection (Friends, Family and OtherStrangers from Downunder)
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